The Lost Warrior: Resurrected
by ResurrectedXerenity
Summary: A retelling of Graystripe's journey from his captivity in Twolegplace to ThunderClan. Based heavily on the "Lost Warrior" trilogy by Erin Hunter and Kate Cary. Many details have been added for creative purposes but the storyline remains the same.
1. Prologue

**Before I begin the story, I'd like to talk about how this story will work.**

 **This story is based on the storyline of "The Lost Warrior" trilogy by Erin Hunter. For copyright and creative purposes, many details have been changed or added but the main storyline and characters remain the same.**

 **Credit for the creation of all characters go to the minds of Erin Hunter and Kate Cary.**

 **This is my first story, so I expect there to be many mistakes or poor decisions. Please help me find them in reviews. It will help me a lot. :)**

 **I will try to write as quickly as I can, but I have a busy schedule (even though it's summer...) so no promises.**

 **Enjoy the story! :)**

* * *

Everything was gone.

Everything.

All because they had destroyed it.

Graystripe looked down at the horrid scene below the ledge. Before him was a scene that only his most cunning nightmares could have crafted. There were white, shiny monsters surrounding the stump of where the marvelous Fourtrees once stood proudly. There was a wooden den that he knew carried the bodies of many, many cats, more than he could possibly count. Sure, some of them were rogues he didn't have a shred of care for, but he knew most of them. They were Clan cats, victims of the merciless capturing that the Twolegs had done. Graystripe couldn't stop himself from reciting their names as they were placed in the belly of the biggest monster of the group.

 _Mistyfoot._

 _Brightheart._

 _Cloudtail._

 _Leafpaw._

Graystripe could hear a whimper of despair from Squirrelpaw as he turned to look at the rescue group. When he turned, he saw her with a terrified expression, right before she buried her face into Brambleclaw's neck. As Brambleclaw tried desperately to comfort his friend, Graystripe faced the rest of his rescue patrol, as in Rainwhisker and Thornclaw.

"Got any ideas?" he asked them, trying to hide his rage and speaking calmly. The other two looked at each other and then out at the clearing before shaking their heads. Graystripe sighed with frustration. There was really no way that they could release the imprisoned cats unnoticed, and they would almost certainly lose a direct encounter with the Twolegs. He was out of ideas.

"I have an idea," said Brambleclaw. "From what it looks like, the Twolegs are only taking cats to the monster one at a time. If one of us distracts the Twolegs who is moving a cat at a specific time, then the rest of us can free the cats in the monster.

It was a good idea, and the rest of the patrol showed their approval by nodding. Then, Thornclaw asked the overlaying question that may have meant life or death.

"Who's going to distract the Twolegs?"

Sharp intakes of breath, scuffling of paws and lack of eye contact gave away that no one wanted to do it. That was understandable, because of how many cats the Twolegs had captured in the span of two days.

At last, with the overarching pressure of running out of time to do the plan in the first place, Graystripe gave in on his common sense and volunteered to do it. To his relief, there was not much, if any, resistance to his proposal.

After Brambleclaw volunteered to lead the raid on the monster, the cats prepared to take position, all except Squirrelpaw, who stayed put.

"You coming?" asked Brambleclaw. "Yeah, yeah." she said. "I just- uh…" she trailed off and looked at the ground, her eyes clouded with worry. "She'll be there in a second." Graystripe told Brambleclaw, who then walked off to where Thornclaw and Rainwhisker were preparing. Graystripe took a deep breath and moved to approach Squirrelpaw, who was still staring at her paws.

"I know you're scared," said Graystripe, while lifting her head up to face him with his tail, "but there is no need to worry." Squirrelpaw's look of reluctance prompted him to go on. "When your father and I were made warriors, many, many seasons ago, we swore an oath; that we would always go into every fight prepared to sacrifice for the sake of our Clan. This," he said with a gesture to the Twoleg camp with his tail, "is no exception."

Squirrelpaw still looked unsure but didn't object.

"Brambleclaw has also made that oath, and in a couple moons, you will too. But behind that oath, there is always the fear for our own life, no matter what the case."

"Ok, but what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that this forest is full of scared, but fiercely loyal cats right now. So, I'm not going to ask you to not be scared, but to think of how loyal you're going to be. To your Clan. To your family. To your sister."

Squirrelpaw took a moment to absorb Graystripe's speech and finally relaxed. "Thanks, Graystripe." she said, smiling for the first time since she returned, and went to join Brambleclaw and the rest of the group.

Graystripe then took position, all the while repeating his own words inside his head.

 _Don't be scared. Be loyal._

 _Don't be scared. Be loyal._

 _Don't be scared. Be loyal._

* * *

Graystripe took position alongside the wooden Twoleg den. Several times, he had to stop himself from holding his breath or else he would most certainly faint.

He replayed the plan in his head one last time. _I will attack a Twoleg from behind to distract them. Since the Twolegs largely focus on the care of their own kind, they will immediately focus on assisting the Twoleg I attack, then I will cooperate with that assist time to keep them distracted for long enough for Brambleclaw's group to release the cats from the monster._

It seemed so perfect in his mind. But Graystripe couldn't shake the nagging feeling that something would go disastrously wrong.

Graystripe put that feeling away as he saw Brambleclaw's head emerge from the bushes. That was the signal. Graystripe nodded to Brambleclaw as an affirmation that he saw him, and pricked his ears to the den.

There was a scuffling noise and a cringe-worthy sound that sounded like Twoleg conversation.

 _One._

There were creaking sounds as a Twoleg emerged from the den.

 _Two._

The Twoleg reached forward with his free hand and opened the monster door.

 _Three!_

Graystripe let out a huge yowl as he charged at the Twoleg. He leaped and dug his claws into its leg. The acrid, musky scent of Twoleg blood filled his senses as the Twoleg let out a loud yowl and dropped the cage it was holding. Graystripe watched as the cage flew through the air and shattered completely when it hit the ground. As the Twoleg crumpled to the ground and grasped its wound, Graystripe ran to the cage and ripped the crumpled pieces away from the she-cat it was holding.

"Go! Run!" he commanded the she-cat

The she-cat looked at him for a couple of seconds before turning and sprinting towards the bushes.

Then, Graystripe heard a chorus of new yowls coming in the direction of the den. _Right on schedule,_ he thought as two more Twolegs rushed to the Twoleg that Graystripe had attacked. At that moment, Graystripe did everything he could to distract them. He hissed, clawed, growled, swiped, or attacked; anything that would buy Brambleclaw's group some time.

That's when things started to go wrong.

As Graystripe dug his claws into a Twoleg's arm, he noticed two cats, rogues, he figured out from his lack of recognition, running away very close to the Twolegs. They were just close enough for one Twoleg to turn away, look at the monster, and see Brambleclaw's patrol releasing cats from their cages.

 _Oh no…_

Just as he feared, the Twoleg signaled for the other Twolegs to get up, and they ran towards the monster. In seconds, the monster would close and the ThunderClan patrol would be trapped.

So Graystripe did what only a fiercely loyal and brave Clan cat would do. He took off towards the monster at full speed.

Just managing to beat the Twoleg by a couple of seconds, the moment he leaped on the monster, he screamed, "Everybody out!" as loud as he could. All cats, whether Clan cats, rogues or kittypets, obeyed his authoritative tone and took off from the monster and into the bushes surrounding the clearing.

All except Cloudtail.

He was trying really hard, harder than Graystripe had ever seen in his life, to break the lock of Brightheart's cage. Graystripe could see tears of hopelessness gleam in the sunset as he uselessly yanked and struggled against the stiff lock.

"Cloudtail, please go!" pleaded Brightheart, tears openly flowing out of her good eye. "No! We're not leaving without you, Brightheart!" said Cloudtail, who was shaking so much, he could hardly stand.

Time was running out. Graystripe needed to get all cats out of here now, or else the three of them would be captured. "Cloudtail, get out of here now! That's an order!" he shouted desperately.

Cloudtail's look of fear and determination showed open denial to his pleading, and so Graystripe had no other choice.

Graystripe reared back and drove his head into Cloudtail's shoulder. Cloudtail lost his balance, let go of the lock and tumbled off of the monster with a wail, just as the Twolegs reached them. Graystripe turned to face them, his eyes blazing and claws unsheathed.

Without thinking, he climbed the wall of cages and leaped right at the Twoleg. The Twoleg in front was caught off guard by the attack, that it wasn't hard to drive his center of balance off and cause him to fall off the monster. When he fell, Graystripe noticed that he had been the only one around to attack him. _Good,_ he thought, _that must mean that they ran away._

But when he heard a roaring sound from the monster, he figured out really quickly that he was wrong.

"Graystripe!" wailed Brightheart in terror. Graystripe turned and tried once again to break Brightheart's lock. The friction was strong on this one, but after a few seconds, he managed to get it free.

Graystripe was very close to telling Brightheart to run far away when a squealing noise caused them both to flatten their ears and press against the ground. When Graystripe looked, he saw a sort of rope attached to a large, cylindrical tank with spherical sides. Graystripe figured out that it was attached to the monster and keeping it from escaping. That meant he had more time to help Brightheart.

But once again, his hopes were quickly dashed when a groaning sound from the rope attached to the monster made him realize they were out of time, and as he opened Brightheart's crooked cage door, the rope broke.

Strange black liquid splashed everywhere and in less than a second, the monster took off at a dizzying speed. In that same moment, a flood of cages flew out the monster doors, and one of them hit the doors, immediately causing them to close on Graystripe and Brightheart.

"No!" screamed Brightheart, as Graystripe leaped to the door window to see them driving away from the forest wreckage. Graystripe could only stare as Brightheart joined him to look out the other window. For what seemed like forever, the two cats stared hopelessly at the home they were being forced away from, and Graystripe knew that he had failed everyone in his Clan and, with Brightheart, now faced certain death.

"Is that smoke?"

The question surprised Graystripe, but when he looked, he did indeed see smoke rising in the direction of the Twoleg camp. What started as a dark gray pillar quickly turned into a large cloud of black smoke.

Seconds later, before Graystripe could think of anything to say, there was a huge explosion. The force exerted from it hit the monster hard enough that Graystripe and Brightheart were propelled away from the windows.

Graystripe felt the world spinning around him as he hit the floor of the monster. For a couple of seconds, he felt like how couldn't get up again. But when he heard a groan from Brightheart, he forced himself to stand on the unstable surface and tend to his Clanmate.

"Are you okay?" said Graystripe. Brightheart nodded, telling him all that he needed. Graystripe hurried back to the window to see a pillar of flames towering into the sky. Graystripe felt himself go numb as he watched the terrifying spectacle.

"I-I think we've stopped moving…" said Brightheart shakily. To Graystripe, her voice sounded miles away, even though she was a couple of feet away. His eyes were locked in a trance at the tower of flames in front of him. It was only when Brightheart joined him at the other window that he tore himself away and glanced at Brightheart.

"Cloudtail...no…." whispered Brightheart, before silently breaking into sobs. Graystripe desperately wanted to comfort her, give her hope that Cloudtail and the rescue patrol had escaped the powerful flames, but he was just as terrified and hopeless as she was. Here they were, trapped in a monster with no way of getting out, and confronting the possibility of half of ThunderClan dying right before their eyes.

Where could hope possible be now?

The answer came to him when two paws landed on the other side of his window.

Graystripe yelped with surprise and fell back to the monster floor. As he was getting up

and taking a breath, Brightheart said the last name he expected to hear.

" _Brambleclaw!_ "

Graystripe immediately looked back to the window and sure enough, there was

Brambleclaw, peeking into the monster with wild, terrified eyes. He immediately rushed to the window and met Brambleclaw's gaze, which flooded with relief right away.

Then a flash of white filled the other window, and the sudden gasp from Brightheart let

him know that Cloudtail was here as well.

'Can you hear me?" shouted Graystripe to Brambleclaw. Brambleclaw nodded.

"Any ideas on how to get us out?"

Brambleclaw shook his head and mouthed, " _Do you?_ "

"No." said Graystripe with a frustrated sigh. They were so close! How were they going to

get out?

Apparently, Cloudtail had some

ideas; or he gave in to desperation and lost his mind altogether.

Cloudtail started ramming his head against Brightheart's window. Brightheart desperately

tried to get him to stop, but he either didn't see her or didn't care.

In the end, it didn't matter, because, after three hits, the window shattered. That's when

Cloudtail stopped and let out a sigh of relief.

Brightheart knew what to do next. She pressed her own front paws against the shattered

glass and put as much force as she possibly could. After a couple of seconds that seemed like an eternity of tension, the glass broke, and Brightheart fell through the open hole into Cloudtail's arms.

"You came back…" she said through refreshed sobs.

"I never would leave you, Brightheart. I love you." He held her tight.

"Let's get her out of here." said Graystripe, who promptly took position beneath her belly.

Cloudtail released her and lowered himself to just below the window, where Brambleclaw joined him shortly after.

After receiving a look of affirmation from Brightheart, Graystripe pressed against

Brightheart, giving her the force necessary to struggle out, though it took several seconds for her to struggle out. When she struggled out, she fell right into the paws of Brambleclaw and Cloudtail. Brambleclaw returned to assist Graystripe while Cloudtail covered her face with vigorous licks.

Graystripe repeated what Brightheart had done. He positioned himself out of the window

and used his front paws to try and push himself out of the monster. Even with Brambleclaw helping, though, he still couldn't get himself out of the monster.

Then, as soon as StarClan gave him luck, they snatched it away just as quickly.

"I can't- nnrggh - get...out…" groaned Graystripe. "Keep...trying." said Brambleclaw.

Then, Graystripe saw a spectacle that he never ever thought of in his life.

A rope of fire.

A literal rope of fire.

Heading straight for them.

He had no time to process why this rope of fire even existed or why it was heading

straight for them, but he knew that they had to get out of there.

"Cloudtail! Brightheart! Run!" The two began to run, but they turned around and stared at him, realizing that he may not get out in time.

The rope of flame jutted inward suddenly and headed straight for the monster.

Graystripe stopped.

And then he made the stupidest decision of his life.

He stopped trying to get out. When Brambleclaw looked, he gave the most apologetic look of his life and shoved Brambleclaw off of the monster. The force caused him to lose the friction between his body and he slid back into the monster.

When he landed on the floor of the monster once again. He took in everything that was happening at that moment. The floor was heating up, he could hear the crackle of flames beneath him, and he could hear the most desperate cry he had ever heard.

He didn't know who it came from, but the cry seemed to echo in his mind.

" _Graystripe!_ "

That was the last thing he heard.

Taking a breath, he shut his eyes as the world exploded around him.

* * *

He felt the explosion rupture his bones as he took cover on the Thunderpath.

For the first time in his life, Brambleclaw was scared to open his eyes.

He was able to hide in his own little world of hope that sheltered him from the worst at least for a little bit before Cloudtail nudged the side of his head.

He opened his eyes, and after blinking away the smoke, he stared at Cloudtail and Brightheart, whose grief-filled eyes told him the worst that he had tried so hard to shelter himself from had happened.

And so, forcing himself to stand up to his worries once again, he turned.

The monster that Graystripe had trapped himself into had, in the seconds he had turned

away, descended into a smoldering wreck. Jagged pieces scarred the Thunderpath, causing cracks to form around them.

And Graystripe…?

Brambleclaw felt the world slip away from him. His ears rang and his heartbeat echoed in his body. Somewhere in this time, Squirrelpaw pulled him away from the scene that would haunt him forever.

They had failed. He had failed.

Because of him, the unthinkable happened.

Graystripe was dead.

* * *

 **Wow. I think I went a bit overkill on this, considering I turned it into a freaking Michael Bay movie.**

 **So here's what happened that caused the explosions. The truck (monster) was connected to an old-fashioned gas tank. The connection was the rope that held them back for a few seconds.**

 **When the gas pump broke off the tank, gas sprayed out while the other side of the pipe remained connected to the truck. The sudden ignition of the engine caused the spark needed to cause the first explosion.**

 **Because the other side of the pipe was still connected to the open gas tank of the truck, gas started to leak out of the open-ended pipe (This part the cats didn't notice), therefore causing the setup necessary for the fire of the first explosion to ignite the leaked gas.**

 **Once the fire got into the truck's gas tank, the monster exploded.**

 **And now Graystripe's dead.**

 **Or so it seems.**

 **SCIENCE!**

 **Hope you enjoyed the prologue of my first work. Hope you enjoyed! Please review, if you can, and keep watch for more chapters coming soon!**

 **Best,**

 **-Xerenity**


	2. I: Mourning

**I'm back! So I think I may stick to monthly updates from now on, because I have a very busy schedule and this the one day I had to finish this. Sorry for the delay! So it's time to actually begin the story! Please take note that this chapter is not from the actual story! I wrote it myself as a kickstarter for the story itself and to practice some of the drama that will take place.**

 **Enjoy the new chapter, and be sure to leave a review with suggestions so I can improve!**

 **Thanks to Hazelcloud of Thunderclan and rose-songs for the follow! I really appreciate it!**

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

~ Mourning ~

StarClan was a confusing place to love.

Loving on the ground was always confusing, no doubt about it, but at least you'd be in the same realm, same vicinity as your significant other. However, when one passes to StarClan, the other can rest assured that they'd be blessed with the chance to see one another again when they pass to StarClan one day. But the catch is waiting. StarClan forbids any suicides to enter StarClan, and this has caused many lovesick widows and widowers anguish, but taught them patience. Which was probably the initial aim.

Silverstream had to learn this the hard way. Graystripe had been the love of her life (despite the relationship being forbidden, but who follows the warrior code these days?) and when she died at childbearing, the two had set off a cascading wave of heartbreak between each other along with the longing to see the other again.

In that time of grieving, Silverstream had begun to notice that Graystripe had been planning suicide as the ultimate act of desperation to see SIlverstream again, and she had been completely fine with it, excited even, because she thought of seeing her true love and being in his strong, yet kind hold was just enough to comfort her.

But in the end, she went to him in a dream and convinced him to stay alive.

Why had she done it?

Because Silverstream knew that Graystripe was an amazing warrior with a heart of gold. He had been loyal to his Clan and to her. He had amazing and supportive friends from ThunderClan and an enjoyable personality that would be the gateway for him to become the deputy of ThunderClan, something he had told her that he wanted to be for a long time, and best friends with the leader.

You only live once, and how you die is remembered forever. Silverstream knew that Graystripe deserved more than anyone to live a beautiful and cherished life, and not one in anguish and grief.

(Also the thing about suicides being denied. She didn't know that before.)

And so that night, on the edge of that cliff, the two made a promise to each other; that they would wait for each other forever, and cherish their own lives. And so far, they remained loyal to that.

But deep down, Silverstream would have a dark hope occasionally that Graystripe would finally die peacefully so they could be together once again. This thought was only strengthened by the death of their daughter, Feathertail, not even a moon ago. But Silverstream kept to her promise and remained patient with her daughter.

Even so, when Graystripe was on that exploding monster, Silverstream couldn't help but cherish the silver lining of the horrific situation many times over.

Now that he was dead, they would be finally reunited once again.

* * *

There was a clearing somewhere in StarClan territory where the newly passed would appear when they were accepted into StarClan. There wasn't an official name, so it went by several. SIlverstream liked to call it "The Gateway" on account of new ones being welcomed into eternal peace. She may have been the only one to call it that, but she certainly wasn't going to change it anytime soon.

It was StarClan tradition that only the loved ones of a newly passed cat could enter the clearing when they are sure of their death. Silverstream had never been allowed into the clearing, except on the occasion of his father's death a couple moons after her own. Even so, the greeting felt half-hearted to her, because she was the one who had to rally in her siblings, whom both died when she was a kit. Who would've known that kits could be more squirrely in StarClan than when they were alive?

But now this would be the most important visit she would ever make to this clearing. Because soon, promises would be fulfilled and broken hearts would be mended in this clearing.

This visit was actually special.

So it's no surprise that SIlverstream ran all the way through StarClan territory to the clearing, and burst into it right away.

She didn't know what to expect when she walked in, but she was slightly disappointed when she sped into an empty clearing.

There were perfect oak and pine trees surrounding the circular clearing, which was also lined with bushes that held beautiful white iris flowers, something that couldn't be marveled on the land below them.

But no Graystripe.

Fine! That was fine! Maybe the cat that was releasing his spirit was taking a long time, or his journey was taking longer than she thought. Silverstream forced herself to be open-minded, because she had no idea how the system of spirit reception worked. So she decided to wait.

So she sat down near the middle of the clearing and waited.

After a couple of minutes, she started to get impatient, so she started counting the minutes she was sitting to get her mind on other things.

 _One._

 _Two._

 _Three._

 _..._

 _Five._

 _..._

 _Ten._

 _..._

 _Twenty._

* * *

Silverstream finally lost count at one hundred and seventeen minutes. She had started losing hope at around eighty-three. She now had her head in her paws and was staring hopelessly at the middle of the clearing.

What was going on? Why had Graystripe not arrived yet? Surely it didn't take that long for spirits to jump to StarClan. Sure, she had heard of long travels between realms, but surely not _this_ long?

Silverstream couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. And rarely in StarClan did anything planned go wrong.

Then, out of desperation and impatience, she closed her eyes and prayed to Graystripe. It was something she always did when she felt her love in a highly troubled state.

 _Graystripe, if you can hear me, can you please tell me that you're coming for me?_

 _Please?_

Then, in miracle fashion, he responded.

It started with the bushes being picked up by a gust of wind that wasn't there. The bushes shook and the rustling of the leaves caught Silverstream's attention. As she looked around, white petals, leaves and pine needles flew into the clearing from all directions and circled the middle of the clearing like a tornado of nature and peace.

In awe, she took a couple of steps back as the speed of the whirlwind continued to rise. It was a phenomenon she had never thought possible, even in this utopia-like realm she was living in.

Then she saw it. Momentarily she saw a flash of gray fur beneath all those petals.

 _He's here!_

Before she could stop herself (not that she wanted to), she rushed forward and burst through the flying petals and leaves…

...and fell face-first onto the ground, getting a faceful of dirt.

After taking a moment to regain her composure, she turned around and saw him.

Graystripe.

Not bothering to form any words, Silverstream let out a yowl of delight, ran to his side, and pressed her muzzle into his side, striving for the feel of his warm fur and comforting scent surrounding her for the first time in years.

But she had to stop herself from falling once again as she seemingly went through Graystripe's body.

As Silverstream looked up in bewilderment, she saw one of the most horrific sights in her life. In front of her was definitely Graystripe, but he had severe cuts and burns seared across his flank and face and his expression was frozen in a clenched mix of terror and fear.

This was Silverstream's worst nightmare. Something was most certainly wrong.

"G-Graystripe? Can you hear me?" she said rather quietly, forcing herself not to believe that he was trapped in his limbo-like state. But the belief stayed with her when Graystripe didn't respond, or even move. She felt tears well up in her eyes. She was _this close_ to seeing him again! Why did something like this have to go wrong?

"I tried to stop her…"

 _Crookedstar_.

Silverstream desperately turned to face her father, the former leader of RiverClan and could barely form a comprehensible sentence to him. "What's g-going on? W-Why is he like th-this? Please! Fix him, father! I need him here! I need to be with him again!

Crookedstar didn't respond, instead he walked past Silverstream and, using his front right paw, swiped at Graystripe's belly. Just as he feared, his paw slashed through thin air and went directly through Graystripe's body with no contact at all. He then turned back, not bearing to make eye contact with his heartbroken daughter.

"Bluestar made the final call."

Silverstream looked up, tears lining her newly bloodshot eyes.

"Graystripe's been resurrected."

Silverstream was silent. Father and daughter stared at each other for a stretched out eternity, the latter with disbelief and the former with regret.

"What?"

"Bluestar has made the decision to bring back Graystripe from the dead."

"No... no…"

At last, Silverstream lost her mind and sobbed into Crookedstar's fur. It was not hard for Crookedstar to tell she had been struck with disbelief as much as grief. "How…? W-why does he have to leave me again? Why...is this possible? You can't resurrect someone just like that?!" The next sentences were unable to be understood by him, but he went on anyway.

"There...is a ritual, rarely used by StarClan, that can be performed to deny a spirit's access to StarClan. The spirit is then forced back into the host's body and reanimated from the dead." Crookedstar gave a shuddering sigh and licked the top of Silverstream's head comfortingly a couple of times before going on.

"Bluestar said that Graystripe didn't deserve to die this way. I guess she made her case well, because the rest of StarClan approved, from the looks of it."

"But...why?"

"I'm sorry, my sweet, but I just don't know." Crookedstar rested his malformed head on top of hers.

"Because Graystripe certainly doesn't deserve to die this way. You of all cats should know that."

Silverstream's ears perked up to the sound of the new noise, and as she broke away from her father, she found herself standing face to face with Bluestar, the former ThunderClan leader of many generations. Her stance was strong as always, but her gaze was filled with sympathy, but determination all the same to sustain her lover's life.

Even so, though there was almost no chance to get him back now, Silverstream didn't let her newfound anger against her subside inwardly.

"Why did you do this? Did you even consider that Graystripe has a family that has been waiting for years upon years for his arrival? Have you ever taken into consideration the patience we have executed to wait for this day? And now, when the time has finally come, you think you're justified to just...take him away from me?!"

Bluestar did not flinch, but after a moment of silence after Silverstream voiced her rage, she calmly got up and walked to Graystripe's translucent, scarred form still floating in the middle of the clearing. After staring at it for a moment, she turned back to her, whose gaze revealed she was demanding an explanation.

"Do you remember your promise?"

Silverstream went cold. _How did she know?_

Bluestar went on. "Why did you make it to him?"

"Wait...what promise?" said Crookedstar, who Silverstream had not informed the night she had made it. Bluestar silenced him with a warning gaze and beckoned her to go on with her tail.

"I...didn't want him to die. Not that way at least. Because…" Silverstream thought of something to get her out of this."Because suicide victims aren't allowed to go to StarClan.

Bluestar was obviously not convinced. "Is that all?"

She exhaled in frustration. _Damn, she's good._

She had no choice now. So she took a breath before revealing the truth.

"He..deserved a more honorable way to die. I wanted him enjoy his life and not throw it away just to see him again. Because, he had another life to be loyal to besides the one that involved me...and our kits."

Bluestar nodded, satisfied. Crookedstar's expression was unreadable.

"That's why I was going to ask you to talk to him."

In an instant, the hope that she had buried herself exploded and filled her body with happiness.

"I...can talk to him?" she said, barely allowing herself to breathe.

Bluestar beckoned her over with her tail, and with one last look and her father, who was now smiling for her, she sat beside the legendary leader of the past.

"I do have one request for you to tell Graystripe."

Silverstream looked at the leader.

"Please. Tell him to come home."

"I will, Bluestar."

"Close your eyes"

She abided, and Bluestar placed her paw firmly on her forehead. Silverstream tried to calm the fluttering excitement inside her belly and waited. While she waited the world seemed to fall away from her. All heat, all emotion, all feeling was lost from her body until she could feel nothing at all.

* * *

 **A/N : The following section of the chapter is dialogue only. Silverstream's dialogue is marked in italics while Graystripe's dialogue is unmarked.**

" _Hello?_ "

" _Graystripe? Bluestar?_ "

" _Why can't I see anything? Can anyone hear me?_ "

" _Graystripe?_ "

"Ngh…"

" _Who's there?_ "

"Where am I?"

" _Hello? Can you hear me?_ "

"...Who is that?"

" _Graystripe?_ "

"Yes? Who is that?"

" _Graystripe! It's me! Silverstream!"_

"Silverstream?!"

" _Oh, my love! I'm here!"_

"Silverstream! I'm coming! Where are you? I can't see anything!"

" _...I'm right here._ "

"Can you see me? Are you here to take me to StarClan? I've waited so long! And I kept to my promise, too!"

" _..._ "

"I'm so excited! I get to see all of my friends! Yellowfang! Bluestar! Lionheart! Oh. I get to see Feathertail! I've missed her so much! How is she doing? Does she miss me? Oh, I'm so happy!

"..."

"So, where do we start? Which way do we go? Oh, it's been so long since we've been together!"

" _Graystripe…_ "

"Yeah? What's wrong?"

" _You're...not allowed to go…to StarClan_ "

"..."

" _I'm sorry_."

"...what?"

" _I'm...so sorry._ "

"I'm...going to the Dark Forest?"

" _No, you're…_ "

"...not dead."

"..."

"..."

"... _yes_."

"B-but how? You saw that monster! It exploded! I was on it! It hurt like mad! How do they explain the fact that I was on the bloody monster when it exploded and I'm not dead?"

" _You are. StarClan just brought you back._ "

"...they can do that?"

" _Apparently_."

"But...when will I see you again? When will I see Feathertail? I...just want to be with you again."

" _I know, my love. I promise I will always be with you._ "

"I love you, Silverstream."

" _I love you too._ "

"..."

"So…what happens now?"

" _Uh...Bluestar told me to tell you something._ "

"Yeah?

" _She wants you to go home. To be with Firestar and the Clan you truly know and love as you have and will all your life._ "

"Firestar…"

" _I'm sorry I have to leave you again._ "

"I'm sorry I have to let you go."

"..."

" _It's time._ "

"Alright...I'm ready."

" _Now go. And remember, Graystripe, I will always be with you._ "

"Always?"

" _Always."_

"Goodbye, my love."

" _Farewell, sweet Graystripe. We will meet again among the stars one day."_

 _I promise..._

* * *

 **And that's the first chapter! Hope you enjoyed this sliver of my own work, which was very hard to write, especially the dialogue only part! Like I said, I think I'll stick to monthly updates in general, but I'll try to upload when I can. But college is hard, so no promises.**

 **Hope you enjoyed and may StarClan be with you,**

 **~Xerenity**


	3. II: Saviors

**SURPRISE! I'm back again with the second chapter! Though this is likely the weakest of the three I've done so far, I had a BLAST writing this. Just the deviation from the classic Erin Hunter style to a more contemporary style for this chapter was just really fun for me. Keep in mind, though, that I had to use words from the forest to describe the environment Graystripe was in, so this chapter may seem a little weird. Also, I decided to add in a section introducing a Twoleg who saved Graystripe's life by pulling him from the wreckage. I am planning on him having another significant role later in the story, so keep a lookout for that section!**

 **I am now also taking OC's temporarily! I'm thinking of adding them to the chapters where Graystripe is in Twolegplace so feel free to submit some! Please PM them to me to not clutter up the review section, though. :)**

 **Thanks so much to DappledleafTheBootiful for the follow and the kind review! I really appreciate it!**

 **And now, please enjoy the second chapter!**

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

 **~Saviors~**

Fire.

Horrendous, blazing fire.

It scorched him, burned his insides, enveloped him in blazing heat.

Graystripe had never been in this much pain, ever. Not even the loss of his friends could amount to something remotely close to this scalding heat.

He was broken, burned, scarred. He could barely move or think. His brain was a mess and the world around him spun like a rock down a steep hill, with colors flashing so fast he couldn't see or hear anything correctly.

All he could hear was a terrible ringing that echoed eternally in his ears. All he could see were flashes of color, bright and dark, black and white, neutral and color, and of time, past, present and future, of which he did not have the capacity to decipher one from the other.

This fire inside him, this incinerating heat, was burning him alive, making him go insane.

This insanity would cause him to never know what would happen around him, as light suddenly broke through his unceremonious burying place and exposed his broken body to the world.

To him, the world had broken around him, and he was watching it swirl in his mind, unknowingly waiting until the world swept him away. Because of that, he would never know that a Twoleg dressed in red and black had just helped him begin his second life.

* * *

His name was James. It was a generic name, sure, but he liked it. He was known to the world as James and only James. He only gave permission to his father, mother and siblings to call him Jamie or Jay or whatever the hell they wanted. But to everyone else, he was James.

James always had big dreams. When he was three, he wanted to become an astronaut and fly to the moon, Mars and beyond. When he was five, he wanted to be a ninja and leap across buildings to save the world. (That dream ended quickly when his parents caught him on the roof and his trampoline in the front yard) When he was eight, he wanted to be a police officer and break down doors and enforce justice in the name of the law, (He eventually gave up on that when his dad told him that he couldn't buy him a gun. That was the biggest tantrum he had ever thrown and his mother had laughed at him despite the circumstances) and when he was ten, he wanted to become a billionaire internet superstar. (That's what started 'Shutdown Sundays,' where he couldn't use any electronics. It didn't take him long to figure out why this "tradition" had started)

But when he was thirteen, the week before eighth grade, he decided that he would become a firefighter. It was the career his father led, and when he was promoted to the chief position, he was invited to the party. It was there where he met the rest of the crew, played with the cat and dog that lived there for about three hours, got a free firefighter hat and a free ride around the neighborhood on the big fire truck. (He even got to blow the horn! Lucky kid!)

It was there that he decided on his future career. And when he found out that there would be a class field trip to the fire station, he realized this would be his chance to become the coolest kid in the grade! So, on the bus ride there, he told everyone on the bus how cool the station was, all the while meticulously planning his words so this it would be interesting to his internet-drunk friends.

And it worked! After helping his dad as an assistant tour guide, his way of explaining it earned his a lot of "Dude, you're dad's pretty lit!", "It's cool that you know these things!", and "We should hang sometime!" remarks. (He did not, however, fulfill his other big goal, which was to impress his crush, a girl named Samantha. But that was probably because she stayed on her phone the entire time, so who gives a damn anyways?)

So, as a celebration, he got to stay at the fire station after the tour and spend the rest of the day there. He spent it getting a lot of high-fives and eating the best spaghetti bolognese he had ever tasted. He also got another ride on the fire truck!

But it was there, when he saw the van explode out his window, that his life changed forever.

* * *

The first rule in being a firefighter is to stay calm at all times. Even if you can't be.

James had learned that from day one, when he was at the promotional party. However, it was particularly hard to stay calm, because they had taken the biggest truck in the shed and they were the only two in the truck. They were also the closest ones, so they were designated as the first responders.

Immediately, he felt the adrenaline pump through his veins. He had never responded to an emergency before! So he forced himself to remain calm and work through his father's orders without freaking out.

He actually did okay, according to his father. He managed to turn the hose-valve the right way and stop pedestrians from approaching the scene until the rest of the unit arrived, avoiding questions of why an eighth grader was at a dangerous place.

About fifteen minutes after the rest of the unit arrived, the fire was out. Apparently, the workers got careless and left a gas tank valve open, and forgot to both turn off the valve and remove the gas pump. James had never thought that anyone could be so careless.

So, according to protocol, they now had to put on heat-resistant suits and search the wreckage for anything alive. The suits they had in stock were far too big, but because of James' stubbornness, they let him put one on. (It was quite a spectacle. The firefighters could not hold their laughter and many pictures were taken of him. That picture got about 1,000 likes on Instagram)

So they searched the dismantled van. It wasn't the hardest job in the world, since the frame of the car somehow managed to stay suitably intact, but the wreckage was pretty heavy, and James couldn't lift a lot of the hunks of metal by himself.

Then he heard it. A soft mewl, barely audible, as he was searching the trunk.

He shouted to the crew that he may have found something, and began to excavate the rest of the metal, which was just light enough so that he could life it.

That's when he found it. A gray-furred cat lying underneath the wreckage of the roof. For a moment, James thought there was no chance he was alive until one of the crew took the cat in his hands and, after placing his thumb on the cat's heart, proclaimed that he was barely alive.

James was shocked that the cat had somehow managed to survive the explosion. So shocked that he didn't say a word through the high-fives the guys gave him, the big hug his dad gave him and the walk back to the truck. Not even when he watched the crew wrap the crippled cat in cold washcloths.

But as he sat in the truck while they drove to the vet, a thought occurred to him.

He had just saved a life.

It was then that James broke the biggest smile he had made today. That was certainly one way to make yourself happy.

* * *

Graystripe woke to a sensation of searing pain.

There was the agonizing fire inside his body that he would never overcome, but outside of it was a new sensation, one prickling on the outside of his body, begging to break in and flood his innards.

Then, among the heat, he started to feel intense chills, like spears of ice pressing against his face, legs and belly. He felt like he was being pulled down a deep, frozen lake, where his fur was turning to ice. The frigid cold began to battle with the agonizing heat, and Graystripe could feel the warring sensations blur out into a mess of intense agony.

His mind was still scrambled and the blur of colors still plagued his sight, but slowly, all that began to melt away, and he began to lose the last shred of his awareness to everything.

Then, as if something clicked in his mind, a solitary, comprehensible thought formed, and he understood it.

 _Need...to...breathe!_

Desperate, Graystripe tried to seize control of his own body, trying to calm it by moving something. He felt like he was just a spirit, slowly floating away from his body into the sky.

Then he opened his mouth.

He didn't know how it happened, but ever so slightly, his jawline broke open a sliver, just enough to part his two rows of teeth and send fresh air into his body. At once his body began to calm, the agony in his body very slowly began to dwindle away, his brain beginning to settle down and his sight focusing on the colors of the image in the present instead of anything in existence.

Then, a second thought entered his mind.

 _Where am I?_

He managed to move his head barely and tried hard to focus. It hurt, but he forced himself to blink, to try and get himself to focus on his surroundings.

After what felt like several moons, his vision slowly began to come back into focus.

It initially seemed like he was in a pitch black area, but as time passed, the details of the space he was in solidified in his vision, and after a couple of minutes, though his sight was still quite blurry, he saw that he was in a very dark, enclosed room.

That was all he could tell. Everything else in the room were either items he didn't recognize or too dark to make something out of it.

He started to get nervous, which was the only emotion his body seemed to tolerate, because of the tensity the body responds to and how it kept the pain in his body in check. However, he also instinctively tried to stand. Instantly, when he tried to move his paws, fresh agony shot through his veins and his cry of pain, muted by his shortage of breath, came out as a pathetic whimper. Even when he stopped trying to move, the intense pain lingered in his body. Graystripe really wanted to vocalize his pain, let somecat know that he was internally burning up and needed help now, but he could not draw the breath to speak, only being able to take shallow gulps of air in small intervals.

On top of that, he had no idea where he was, whether he was dead or alive, or what kind of danger he was in. What he did know what that he needed help. Now. And to do that, he needed to stand.

He forced himself to try again. Slowly, he turned his front paws so that they faced the ground. The pain intensified once again, but he kept pushing on, desperately trying to keep the agony in the back of his mind. Eventually, he made contact with the sleek surface he was laying on. In the midst of the excruciating pain, Graystripe felt a moment of coolness envelop his front paws before the momentary relief dissipated one again.

He now faced the challenge of overcoming his own weight and tensity and forcing his hind legs up. Knowing that even more pain was to come from his wrecked muscles, he forced himself to take a bigger intake of breath than his broken body would prefer to tolerate. The now all too familiar burning rose to his throat and lungs, and he had to put in all his willpower not to fall back over to his side. He pressed his front paws on the ground, filling himself with the sensations of the frail relief. Then, very slowly, he attempted to shift his balance and move his legs, which felt like a separate entity from the rest of his body.

The moment he began to make progress, his internal torment escalated exponentially. Everywhere, in his joints, in his stomach, in his head, the agony swelled to a dominance that was so great that Graystripe thought he was about to explode. His breath was stolen from him as his body, despite its protest, was twisted to move his legs.

Graystripe did not initially notice this, but the pain was well too much for him to handle, especially in his degraded mental state. In the moments following, mist suddenly began to cloud his vision and his eyes began to roll back. He was about to faint and he didn't even know it.

Due to his unnatural focus on the task that was wrecking his body, he did not notice a bright ginger tom sprint out of the mist and directly at him. It was only when his yowl of pain and grief filled his ears did he notice.

Everything in his body seemed to freeze, and the pain stopped for just a moment. But he could not notice.

"Graystripe!"

The tom was calling his name. And he was forced to listen

Tears lined the tom's eyes as his illusion seemed to stare directly at him.

"Come home. Come back to me. Please…"

His mind then produced a fourth thought. This time, it was not a task, but a name.

 _Firestar._

It seemed to echo, the thought.

 _Firestar._

It got louder.

 _Firestar._

Louder still. Almost to the body where his whole body could jubilate it to the stars.

 _Firestar!_

Then, his brain broke from its null, solitary stance, and everything flooded in like a waterfall. Memories, cherished and disputed from the past. Thoughts, questions, about the present, and dark, scary fears about the present.

In that moment, Graystripe remembered everything.

In that moment, he knew that he was truly resurrected.

Then he fell back sideways onto the surface, and pain flooded him once more.

Graystripe now tried to regain his shallow breath, coming rhythmically in long intervals. The searing fire still burned in his belly, but now that he could think for himself, the pain seemed to dwindle to the point where he could barely bear it if he didn't think about it.

Besides, he had different things to think about now that a set of doors just opened and light now flooded the room.

Graystripe squinted hard at the sudden light change. Now, everything was blurry again. As he tried to regain focus, he then noticed that two large figures that seemed the size of a tree were looming over him on opposite sides. Then, all of a sudden, one of the creatures pressed on his belly lightly and began to put pressure. The pain built up to unimaginable heights, but even that was nearly overcome completely by the sudden cold Graystripe felt.

 _Oh StarClan, no._

Standing over him were two adult Twolegs. And they were armed with sharp blades that were meant just for him.

Graystripe began to freak out. His eyes went wide and he began to flail around helplessly, but as he tried to squirm away, the pain caught up with the adrenaline, and lagged his movement so he could not escape the Twoleg's grip. He tried to look for a distraction for the Twolegs so he could escape, but could see none. He was stuck.

He felt one of the Twolegs take his front left paw in their furless, crystal-white hand. He began to brush the charred fur just under the paw in opposite directions to make a part, revealing the shrouded skin underneath in the process.

Then Graystripe saw it. A silver bramble-like blade held in the other Twoleg's hand. It seemed to gleam ominously in the artificial sunlight they had created. Graystripe tried desperately to pry away from their grip, but his stiff and shattered body would not allow him the strength to move.

Then, with the paw in it's firm grip, the Twoleg plunged the bramble into his leg, and Graystripe, let out a pathetic, muted, high-pitched cry that a bird would mistake for a mating call. That's when he ran out of breath and he could not regain any more.

His eyes, now pained slits, stared in terror at the bramble that now pierced his front leg. A tiny trickle of blood was trailing down his fur and his paw was twitching out of his control.

Then a new feeling crept over him, and he realized he was feeling drowsy. Though it was not the cold wind of death that was beginning to creep through his blood and bones, but the warm, inviting escapade of sleep. To Graystripe, however, it was just as terrifying.

Once again, he tried to hopelessly fight against the grip of the Twolegs, who were now brushing his belly and stroking his head. They had him by his central points of movement.

 _Must...stay...awake…_

Even though he was fighting as hard as he could, the sleep was still creeping up on him. Now, it was taking effect on his damaged limbs, which had begun to lag behind his brain's will to escape.

His back legs were the first ones to go. They were weakly twitching at long intervals before a large convulsion caused them to go still. Then his belly began to relax and smooth out, the lack of movement causing Graystripe's breathing to slow. His front legs, which had been shaking profoundly, then slowed until they slumped down in the Twoleg's grip. At last, the sleep-inducing effect went to his head, and the pain throughout his body began to fade. Graystripe tried to fight against it in one final lifeless struggle, but to no avail. At last, mist clouded his vision and he fell into a deep sleep, the excruciating pain now seeming miles away from his shattered body.

* * *

When Graystripe woke, he noticed that he could now move his legs.

He was on his side, much like the position he found himself in when he first awoke, bot he was not on a surface. Rather, he noticed with a jolt that he was floating above the surface, and his paws touched nothing when he stood on his paws for the first time.

The pain was still there, but it felt very distant. It felt more like a thought of the past, then a cruel grip of the present. Graystripe also took this into account and began to look around.

But why was he floating? Surely this was a dream? Then, Graystripe shuddered as another thought crossed his mind.

 _What if StarClan took away my second life?_

He wondered this not out of fear, but of confusion. He remembered when SIlverstream told him that he was being resurrected by StarClan, a privilege he was very fortunate to have, no doubt, but in doing so, they had put him through the worst feelings of pain, fear, and hopelessness that he could ever think possible. It was almost like he was resurrected just to be tortured.

This caused more questions to fill his mind. _Did StarClan even mean to resurrect me? Were they punishing me for something? What if StarClan is still mad at me for loving Silverstream? Or switching to RIverClan? What…_ Graystripe didn't dare dwell on this next thought longer than he had to.

 _What if they're mad at me for failing to protect my daughter?_

Feathertail, Graystripe's daughter, had joined a group of cats that traveled to the sun-drown place, where they had received a prophecy that Twolegs would destroy the forest and they had to find a way home. Tragically, she had not made the journey. She had died saving a tribe of cats from one Sharptooth, who Stormfur described as a terrible monster who had hunted down the tribe for many generations. Graystripe had blamed himself for not keeping a closer eye on them and letting them walk into danger like that. That alone seemed like a plausible thing for StarClan to punish.

 _Well, if this was a torture method, then it certainly worked,_ he thought grimly.

Suddenly, the environment around him shifted and Graystripe found himself in the direct line of a bright light. He shut his eyes tight as he blindly stumbled to the side of it, and ended up falling on his side once again. When he opened his eyes, he noticed that he could see moving things from below his stance. Curious, he looked down.

It did not take him long to realize that he was back in the torture room where he had been before. The Twolegs were moving along and around the surface where he could see his own body. When he saw it, he let out a shiver at the state of his body.

Though he was laying down with his belly facing up, he was noticeably crooked. It seemed that his spine twisted involuntarily and jutted up into his stomach, considering the high amounts of swelling there, all four of his legs were broken and swelling in different places, his pads were heavily torn with deep gashes, one of them almost being completely torn off, and his entire body, especially his face, was burnt badly from the fire.

It was not a pleasant sight for Graystripe to see, but it quickly got much worse.

A gleam of light caused Graystripe to turn to his left. When he looked down, he saw a sharp, thin blade clasped in the Twoleg's hand. Graystripe felt himself go cold as he watched the Twoleg grab the leg of his sleeping body and begin to part the fur on it.

Graystripe went cold. He had no idea what to expect, but whatever it was, he figured it wasn't going to be good.

And he was right. Because seconds later, the Twoleg aimed and stabbed Graystripe's leg with the blade, piercing the skin underneath and causing blood to spill down onto the table.

Graystripe was sick with shock, and he was transfixed on his leg as the Twoleg removed the blade, revealing the gash he had just given him. Then, pressing both of his paws on the leg, he put the cut open wider ever so slowly, allowing more blood to spill out of his leg.

 _What are they doing?! They're going to kill me!_ Graystripe had never like Twolegs because of how they destroyed his home especially, but he had never thought Twolegs would ever think to kill cats!

He then instinctively looked back at his hind legs, and he watched with horror as without any contact, the fur parted and his skin tore apart, revealing a nearly fatal gash.

It was at that moment that Graystripe could take no more of watching his own death, so he curled up in a ball, and shut his eyes, tears of fear beginning to form on their rims.

 _StarClan, why are you doing this to me?! I'm sorry! Whatever you're punishing me for, I'll make it up a different way! Please just take me to StarClan! To Silverstream! To Feathertail! Just spare me! Please! Please!_

 _Please… You don't have to listen to me ever again, just this once. Have mercy. Please…_

Graystripe tightened the ball he had made himself into, and let the tears flow.

It's a shame he did not see that the Twolegs had made the gash to heal his broken bones. After doing it three times more, and using pressure to fix his shattered spine, Graystripe's pain would be reduced significantly to a tolerable state.

The Twolegs had fixed Graystripe and saved his life.

And he didn't even know it.

* * *

Doctors were amazing.

James had always known this through his life, ever since they fixed his leg when he had broken it ten years ago. From then on, he would never throw a fit about going to the doctors for check-ups every six months, because he was always reminded of what they did to help him in his time of need. (And yet four years later, he would throw a huge tantrum about not being able to own a gun at age eight. Such a strange world we live in…)

But now, he had witnessed a true miracle from the hands and skill of doctors, and they walked out holding the gray cat he had rescued, in a much better condition. Emergency surgery works when done by skilled people, he guessed.

But when his dad shook the doctors' hands, he walked up and asked to hold the cat.

Moments later, he was holding the gray scrap of fur he had rescued from the burning van hours earlier. His heart seemed to swell with joy and love as he held him.

That's when his dad asked, "What should we name him?"

James felt a jolt of excitement. "We're keeping him?!"

His father nodded, a big smile present on his face.

James hugged him with his free arm while keeping the gray cat cradled in his other. Looking down at the cat, he thought of many names, but he decided on one that would remind him of the courage he displayed today and serve as further inspiration to become what he dreamed to be.

"Let's call him Ember."

* * *

 **And that's it! Hope you enjoyed!**

 **I know I've been deviating from the events of the book for a while now, but I promise that I'll start with the book events now. Next chapter, Graystripe will be in Twolegplace.**

 **As always, please leave a review with suggestions with improvements for my writing and, if you wish, PM me some OC's! I'll try to use as many as I can throughout the next couple of chapters!**

 **Keep a lookout for Chapter 3! I just might be able to post it before the week is done, so keep an eye out. If not, it will most certainly be ready at the end of the month.**

 **As always, thanks and may StarClan be with you,**

 **~Xerenity**


	4. III: Prison

**Well, this chapter is LOOOONG! Over 6,000 words! This will probably be the longest chapter I will write in a long time because this also took 2 weeks to polish.**

 **So, I really don't have a grasp on the completion of the next chapter because *dramatic music* School is starting! So, depending on how much of Chapter 4 I can get done for the rest of summer break, it will likely be released at the end of September, maybe earlier, but definitely not later.**

 **Speaking of Chapter 4, I am still accepting OCs! Please feel free to PM them to me with as much or little info as ou wish. I promise to make your character memorable!**

 **Also, this fanfic just hit 175 VIEWS! It may not seem like a lot, but this is monumental for my first story! Thanks a million!**

 **Thank you so much to Taurus The Dragon for the fave and the follow! I highly appreciate it!**

 **And now, please enjoy my longest chapter yet!**

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

~ | Prison | ~

He remembered it like it was yesterday.

Years ago, back when he was six moons old, newly apprenticed and on his first outing from camp in his young life, he still remembered it perfectly. He was showing off his hunter's crouch to his mentor, Lionheart, trying hard not to step of the leaves on the ground or let his tail swish too excitedly, as both of them would give away to the prey that he was there. "Be as light as a feather," Lionheart had said, "and pounce as hard as a falling rock." Sure, the metaphor wasn't the best one, but he was just six moons, so it worked anyway.

He remembered that he was very far from the best at hunting and that twice he slipped on a leap and fell out of his crouch, three times he'd either sail over or land just short of his prey, and one time he completely overshot his target and collided with a tree. Of course, Lionheart was probably annoyed by his clumsiness, but Graystripe remembered Lionheart telling the elders a couple days later that he was "very clumsy, but irresistibly charming and fun! I'm so glad to have him as an apprentice."

But even with his hilarious clumsiness that charmed his mentor and the ThunderClan leader, who was also with them on that specific outing, nothing would ever beat what he found that night. A finding that would rewrite history and change the course of all the Clans forever.

* * *

" _Do you smell that?"_

 _Lionheart stopped and opened his mouth to smell the air. After a few seconds, he turned in the other direction. "Kittypet scent." he said, with the scorn obvious in his voice, "Must be a strong gust blowing in. You know kittypets wouldn't dare enter here after Tigerclaw attacked that kit three seasons ago."_

 _Lionheart's response seemed to make Bluestar stop and smell the air, and Graypaw decided to check to make sure he wasn't making a fool of himself, which he had already done several times tonight._

" _Stop," said Bluestar suddenly, causing both toms to freeze and look at their leader._

" _It's getting closer." Immediately Bluestar and Lionheart turned and crept towards a clump of bushes. Graypaw felt a thrill of excitement. Did he just scent an intruder? He didn't realize that he was rooted to the ground until Lionheart gestured him over with his tail._

" _Now I wish we went over attacking techniques first…" muttered his mentor, seemingly to himself, before turning to face Graypaw. "Now there may be an intruder on our territory, but since neither Bluestar nor I want you to get hurt, we want you to look around quietly, and let us know if you find the cat on our territory. Alright?" Graypaw nodded, despite the disappointment churning in his belly. "Remember, stay light as a feather," he said before walking briskly but quietly towards Bluestar, who was searching the bushes for a scent mark._

 _Though he was still upset that he was forbidden to attack the supposed intruder, he started to feel prickles of fear because of how unprepared he was. What if he found the intruder and neither Bluestar nor Lionheart were able to receive his signal? What if he was forced to attack the intruder? What if the intruder found him and attacked him? The thoughts of the worst case scenarios swirled around his head while he moved quietly around the clumps of bushes and ferns, searching for another trace of the foreign scent._

 _After a couple of minutes, Graypaw had found nothing. He was about to go find Lionheart when he suddenly heard a loud ringing to his left. After suppressing a gasp of surprise, he dropped to a hunter's crouch and moved very quietly to the clump of ferns where the noise had seemingly originated. The fur on his spine immediately shot skyward when he caught a glimpse of what was beyond the bushes._

 _There was a ginger tom that looked to be about his age. He was also a kittypet, Graypaw could tell that from the blue collar and shiny gold bell attached to his neck, but instead of being laid-back and careless like most of the kittypets the elders and warriors had told him about, he was lean, focused and wary. In fact, he looked almost scared. Was he aware that the bell had given away his position?_

 _Graypaw began to look around for Lionheart and Bluestar, but as he did so, his head hit one of the bush's branches and it rustled dangerously, and Graypaw realized, with a disheartening chill, that he had given himself away._

 _He found himself locking eyes with the kittypet. He let out an involuntary shudder as his jade green gaze bore into him. He expected to see the fear in the kittypet's gaze but instead saw alertness and determination, something he had never thought he'd ever see in the Twoleg-possessed, laid-back kittens he had heard about in stories._

 _It was not hard to tell that this kittypet was different. And in this case, different was dangerous._

 _A couple of seconds passed, and the stranger looked away. Graystripe relaxed, on the thought that the other tom hadn't seen him. After glancing back a couple more times, he gave up the search for Lionheart and decided that he was going to have to attack this intruder himself. So he crouched down, waited until the kittypet was focused on something else, and sprang._

 _Despite the looks that gave him a certain mask of confidence, nothing could prepare the kittypet for the attack. Graypaw barreled into him easily, and forced his weight into the kittypet's back, keeping him pinned to the ground. Unsheathing his stubby claws, he slashed at the kittypet's flank, leaving scratches on the intruder's skin beneath his ginger fur._

 _This is easy, Graypaw thought, He's sure to run away soon enough!_

 _Then the kittypet did something Graypaw would never be able to prepare himself for. He pushed himself and Graypaw off the ground and rolled over, then forcing his own weight against Graypaw._

 _Every single source of breath in Graypaw's lungs flew out of his body in an instant, loosening his grip and allowing the kittypet to break away and run._

 _Graypaw was not going to let this intruder get away so easily, so he pelted after him._

 _The two tore through the forest, a blur of fiery ginger followed quickly by a flash of gray. Graypaw had never run this fast before, but his focus on taking down his target forced him onward._

 _Suddenly, at the edge of the forest, the tom skidded to a halt and turned to face him. Graypaw realized too late how fast he was going, and slammed into the kittypet at full speed._

 _Graypaw went flying and ended up getting a faceful of dirt, while the kittypet staggered for a moment, but managed to stay on his feet despite being obviously winded. The same fire that burned in his eyes remained aflame as he turned to face him with intense ferocity._

 _But Graypaw no longer wanted to fight, in the fear that he would lose and get injured. So instead, he decided to be friendly. Compliment him or something like that._

" _Hi there, kittypet. You put up a pretty good fight for a soft kitty."_

 _Weak, scolded Graypaw to himself._

"' _Soft kitty,' huh? I'll fight you again if I have to."_

 _But as he said that, he saw him relax and settle out of his attack position._

 _Ignoring the obvious threat that the kittypet had thrown at him, he continued. "I'm Graypaw, by the way. I'm training to be a ThunderClan warrior!" he said, trying to get the kittypet's mind on other things, or intend to._

 _To his surprise, the kittypet seemed confused. He thought he caught the tom's look of bewilderment before he bent to lick at his chest fur, but he ignored it, instead seeing a chance, now that he knew his façade was working, to get more information on his attacker. To do this, he said, "What's a kittypet doing out in the woods? Don't you know it's dangerous?"_

" _If you're the worst thing the forest has to offer, I think I can handle it," said the tom_

 _Graypaw called his bluff. Did this kittypet seriously think that he was that dangerous? He couldn't be. Though he was proud of his amateur attack moves, he knew far too well that there were worse cats to fear of. "Oh, I'm far from dangerous. You haven't seen the other Clan cats yet. They're far more dangerous and would have ripped you to shreds if they saw you, no questions asked."_

 _That seemed to get to the kittypet, as his eyes widened with an expression of fear written plainly across his face._

" _You just wait until I become a warrior," Graypaw said, tugging at a clump of grass between his claws, "I'll be so scary, I'll have the entirety of ShadowClan shaking in their flea-ridden pelts! Oh, just you wait!"_

" _So...you're not a warrior yet?" asked the kittypet._

" _Why? Did you think I was?" said Graypaw, allowing a proud smirk to cross his face. "No, apprentices have to go through a lot of training before they can become warriors. Tonight is just my first night out! We have to go through a lot of training in order to become warriors."_

" _Well, why don't you go find yourself an owner and a nice cozy house instead?" suggested the kittypet, "It's easy! All you have to do is find a house you like and look hungry for a couple of days…"_

 _The naiveté and pure stupidity of this suggestion forced Graypaw to interrupt him. "So they can feed me pellets that look like rabbit droppings and soft slop!" He didn't even try to hide the disapproval in his voice. "No way! I can't think of anything worse than being a kittypet! They're nothing but Twoleg toys! Eating stuff that doesn't look like food, making dirt in a box of gravel, sticking their noses outside only when the Twolegs allow them? That's no life!" He gestured to the forest with his tail, "Out here in the wild, it's free! We come and go as we please." He paused to smooth the fur on his chest but caught a whimsical look in the kittypet's eyes. Was he really that interested in going to the wild?_

 _He decided to put that to the test. "Unless you've tasted a real mouse, you haven't lived! Have you tasted mouse?"_

" _N-No!" burst out the tom, almost sounding offended, "Not yet, anyway…" he added with a scuffle from his paws in embarrassment._

 _Graypaw felt a strange prick of disappointment in his belly, but with a sigh, he set it aside. "I guess you'll never understand. You weren't born wild. It makes a big difference. You need to be born with warrior blood in your veins, or the feel of wind in your whiskers. Kitties born into twoleg nests could never feel the same way."_

 _If the kittypet had responded, he did not hear it over the cold feeling that suddenly swept by his scent glands. He realized that he had dawdled too long and Bluestar and Lionheart were coming._

" _I smell cats from my Clan!" said Graypaw to the now alarmed kittypet. "Quick! Run!" he hissed._

 _The kittypet did not have time to react. Less than a second later, Bluestar burst through the bushes, a stern look wrote across her face. "What's going on here?" she demanded._

 _Graypaw went cold. He turned to Bluestar with the most obviously faked smile he had ever made and let out an involuntary chuckle of nervousness. "H-Hi, Bluestar…" he squeaked out, feeling his insides shrivel beneath his skin. Moments later, Lionheart broke through the bushes, and Graypaw felt his head, now burning with shame, droop to the ground. He was caught._

" _You shouldn't be so near Twolegplace, Graypaw," said Lionheart to his apprentice with such cold authority that it made Graypaw shiver._

" _I know, Lionheart. I'm sorry." he apologized. Graypaw did not even try to hide the guilt in his voice, knowing that he would be in even more trouble if he argued or lied. He just stared at his paws._

" _Graypaw, who is this?" inquired Bluestar, turning her icy stare to the fearful kittypet on his right._

" _He's no threat!" responded Graypaw a little too quickly, earning a gaze of suspicion from his mentor. He continued, despite the certain mistrust in Lionheart. "He's not another Clan warrior, just a kittypet from beyond our territories." Not knowing of what else to do, he quickly introduced the two newcomers to the ginger tom, who was looking up at them no longer in fear but in submissive awe._

" _Thank you for the introduction, Graypaw," said Lionheart, almost sarcastically._

 _Bluestar had not yet moved her gaze from the kittypet, who was now bowing in front of her since Graypaw told him that she was leader. "You fight well for a Twoleg pet," she said abruptly. Graypaw felt like a rock just dropped in his stomach. They had been watching him the entire time! Graypaw now felt uncomfortably exposed. He had been caught fighting when he had been ordered not to, and conversing with a kittypet! Now he was certain that he would get punished. Today could not get any worse._

 _But this next remark certainly caught him off-guard. "We were wondering how you would deal with the intruder, Graypaw."_

 _For a moment, Graypaw was stunned. Had they been expecting him to attack this entire time?_

 _Bluestar motioned for the kittypet to sit up, which he did promptly. As such, she began to pace in front of the two young toms, all the while Lionheart was staring callously at his apprentice. "You reacted to the attack well, kittypet. Graypaw is stronger than you, but you used your wits to defend yourself. You also turned to face him when Graypaw. I've never seen a kittypet do that before."_

 _Once again, Graypaw felt swelteringly hot with humiliation. He had been completely outsmarted, and by a kittypet, nonetheless! Sandpaw and Dustpaw were certainly not going to let him hear the end of this._

 _But then again, this kittypet had skill. He was certainly not normal, so to speak, among his class. Maybe, since his dexterity was enough for Bluestar to take an interest, he would have an excuse to not be embarrassed. Just maybe._

" _I have been wondering how you would perform out here, beyond the Twolegplace. We have been patrolling this border frequently, and I have often seen you staring from your boundary, into the depths of the forest. And now, at last, you have dared to place your paws here." Bluestar did not hide her interestedness in this newcomer, as she began to muse over his skills. "You do seem to have a natural hunting ability…"_

" _If I may interrupt, Bluestar," said Lionheart, who had been looking upon the leader in confusion for about a minute, "he is still a kittypet, and he has been hunting in ThunderClan territory. Send him home to his Twolegs!"_

 _Bluestar was about to speak, likely to defend her newfound regard for this newcomer, but the kittypet got there first. "Send me home?" he said indignantly, "But I've only come for a mouse or two. I'm sure there's enough to go around…"_

 _If there was any chance that the ThunderClan leader was going to defend him, it was gone instantly. "Excuse me?!" snapped Bluestar suddenly, causing Graypaw and the kittypet to jump and even Lionheart to look a bit surprised, but whether it was at the sudden fury of his leader or the plain candor of the kittypet's knowledge was left unknown._

 _Bluestar did not hesitate to get in the kittypet's face, her blue eyes smoldering with threatening ferocity. "There is never enough to go around!" she shouted, louder than Graypaw had ever heard her before. "If you didn't live such a soft, overfed life, your pampered brain might have actually been able to understand that!"_

 _Graypaw began to fear for the kittypet's safety. He had never seen Bluestar this mad before. This kittypet was in for it now._

 _But shockingly, despite the patent acrimony thrown directly at him, the kittypet managed to relax under the fiery gaze of Graypaw's leader, and got up from a fearful, submissive crouch, to sitting to face her at eye-level. Almost evenly, he spoke to her; "I am no threat to your Clan."_

 _Bluestar was not convinced by this sparse justification. "You threaten our Clan when you take our food!" She gestured to Twolegplace with her lashing tail and continued. " You have plenty of food here, so the only reason you come out here to hunt is just for sport, to impress your fellow housecats with your 'skills'."She did not bother to hide the sarcasm in her voice. "Don't you understand that we do this to survive?!"_

 _The kittypet could not hide the insecurity of being screamed at in the face, but moments later, relaxed and spoke again. "I...admit that I had not thought of it that way. I am deeply sorry." He ended with a respectful nod to Bluestar and Lionheart._

 _There was not a single ThunderClan cat in the clearing who was not bewildered at that moment. Graypaw felt his jaw drop at the kittypet's apparent serenity in addressing the leader. Lionheart looked upon the kittypet with nearly the same shock that his apprentice showed, but with a subtle glint of newfound respect in his eyes. Even Bluestar was taken aback by the kittypet's considerate and honest words._

 _After taking a few moments to regain her composure, she turned back to the ginger tom. "You are an unusual kittypet, Rusty," she said simply, whilst licking her paw and drawing it over the tuft of fur that dangled from her forehead._

 _Rusty. So that was the kittypet's name. But how did Bluestar know it? Had she truly been that interested in this kittypet?_

 _Wait… Was Bluestar going to…?_

 _Graypaw barely paid attention to Rusty when he inquired about life in ThunderClan. He kept an anticipating stare directed at the sleek gray leader, awaiting the inexorable question she was certainly going to ask._

 _After a near eternity, she turned from Lionheart, with whom she was conversing with, to Rusty, who was sitting patiently at the edge of the clearing. Then, the question came so suddenly that even Graypaw could not anticipate the timing of it._

" _Would you like to join ThunderClan?"_

 _Graypaw's eyes widened in shock. He turned to Rusty, who was exponentially more astonished than himself, to Lionheart, who had a dubious, nearly defeated look inscribed upon his face. Amidst his stunned state, Bluestar continued to speak. "If you did, you would train alongside Graypaw to become a Clan warrior."_

" _B-But kittypets can't be warriors! They don't have warrior blood!"_

 _Graypaw did not realize he had said this until Lionheart gave him a warning hiss to be silent. Instantly, his body flared up with heat once again. His ears twitched in embarrassment, and he wished he could bury himself in the ground and never come out._

 _Rusty was especially disheartened by his sudden outburst, and his composure decayed to one of sadness immediately. Bluestar then stopped and looked above Rusty's head, at seemingly nothing for a moment, then turned to Graypaw, who was now showing his humiliation by scrunching up uncomfortably in his sitting position, with a look of anguish and sympathy._

" _Warrior blood." she let out a long sigh before continuing, "Too much of that has been spilled lately." Graypaw could no longer meet the eyes of his Clanmates, and stared down at his paws in shame, now knowing how much that single phrase had offended._

 _Lionheart broke the silence. "Keep in mind that Bluestar is only offering you training, young kit. There is no guarantee that you become a full warrior. It might prove too difficult for you. After all, you are used to a comfortable life."_

 _Graypaw began to tune out once again. A thought just occurred to him. What if Rusty did join ThunderClan? Then maybe he would go to him for help! Maybe he, Graypaw, could be a mentor to a fellow apprentice! That was a refreshing thought, and it almost washed away the pile of guilt that had built up inside him today. Though he may have caused a season's worth of embarrassments, he could go to sleep today with a new friend and responsibility that not many ever get the chance to have!_

 _He tuned back in when Rusty said to the leader; "Can I think about your offer?"_

 _Graypaw felt a prick of disappointment. He was hoping to have something good come out of today…_

" _Lionheart will be here at sunhigh tomorrow. You may give him his answer then," responded the leader._

 _Rusty gave a slow nod. After giving a nod of farewell to the kittypet, Bluestar gestured to the other two toms and seconds later, the group was on their way back to camp, leaving behind the ginger tom with the decision that would change the world forever._

 _The three walked back side-by-side, though, despite their consistent conversing with each other in the clearing, they were silent on the walk back._

 _At last, Graypaw could no longer take the guilt that was pent up inside him, and it all came flowing out of him suddenly._

" _I'mreallyreallyreallyreallysorryIdidn'tmeantoattackhimeventhoughyoutoldmenottooit'sjustthatyouweren'taroundandIwasfreakingoutandhewassnoopingaroundlike  
hewastryingtostealpreyandi'msososososososorryforthatoutburstthatwassorudehowcouldisaythatwhyamisofreakinginconsiderateofeveryoneelsemaybethisiswhyi  
havenofriendsmaybethisiswhysandpawanddustpawarejerkstomebecausei'mclumsyandbadatmakingdecisionsiwillacceptanypunishmentthatyougivemeanddoita  
moonlongerthanwhatyouassignmetodoandIjustfeelreallybadand…"_

" _Stop," said Bluestar, who was smiling in spite of herself. Even Lionheart was trying hard not to crack a grin._

 _Graypaw was left panting for breath, and he looked up at Bluestar when he finally relaxed._

" _Graypaw, you did fine. Impressive, even. You were forced into that situation without any training for battle, and you put up a damn good fight. You came face to face with one of the most talented kittypets in Twolegplace. It doesn't matter that you lost. In fact, this loss may have led to us recruiting a strong warrior for the Clan!"_

 _That did make Graypaw feel better, but his lackluster performance at hunting still hung over his head._

 _Lionheart seemed to read his mind. "And don't worry about earlier. You're young, eager, and have a lot of talent inside you. I promise that you have a great destiny in front of you and if you keep working, you'll be a very strong and valuable warrior._

 _Wow. This was the first time Lionheart and actually praised him. And it felt good! Graypaw puffed out his little, furry chest proudly, making Bluestar smile wider and Lionheart let out a low, yet soothing chuckle._

" _Come on," said Lionheart, "Let's get back to camp."_

 _They arrived at camp, and Lionheart sent him to bed. Graypaw then felt the exhaustion of the day catch up with him, and his tail drooped to the ground in fatigue as he dragged himself to his nest in the apprentices' den._

" _Hey, Graypaw." said a smug voice from the darkness of the den._

 _Graypaw rolled his eyes. He did not want to deal with them right now._

 _Sure enough, out of the darkness emerged Sandpaw and Dustpaw, the two most arrogant and cocky cats in the entire Clan. They had their classic smug grins upon their faces and seemed to be chock-full of gossip about him._

" _So how did hunting lessons go?" said Dustpaw with an obvious taunt in his voice._

 _Graypaw did not answer._

" _You know, I've never heard of anyone who's slipped on a leaf and fallen while stalking a mouse…" teased Sandpaw. "...or pounced so high they ran into a tree!" added Dustpaw. The two let out some callous laughter._

" _You mind leaving me alone?" growled Graypaw._

 _They continued. "So why did you take so long, Sir Slips-a Lot?" gibed Dustpaw. "Did Lionheart have to reteach you how to walk?"_

 _The last thing he wanted was to embarrass himself again by telling them about Rusty, so instead, he sat up and got in Dustpaw's face, which shut him up easily. "Look, I would really like to go to sleep, so why don't you two lovers go make out at Fourtrees and leave me to sleep?"_

 _That did it. Immediately, Dustpaw's eyes widened and his ears began to twitch rapidly, leaving him gaping at Graypaw. With a glance to his left, he saw that Sandpaw had suddenly become very interested with her front paws, as she scuffled them across the ground._

" _Thank you," said Graypaw as he walked away to his nest, leaving the other two apprentices to sort themselves out. As he walked, he felt a bland pang. He never really liked being irascible, but it seemed he always had to be when these two were around._

 _While Graypaw settled down in his nest, ready to sleep the night away, at last, Rusty would make the biggest decision of his life, one that would change the course of history forever, and make him remembered as one of the greatest warriors of all time._

* * *

Graystripe immediately became best friends with Firestar the day he joined ThunderClan, and it wasn't hard to see why. Firestar had been "assigned" to Graystripe when he was made an apprentice, and as it turned out, Graystripe had done a pretty good job. They both also had the same mentor, and did many assignments together. The two had become and stayed fast friends for years now, and had gone through some of the worst things that any cat could dream of.

But Graystripe knew that there was also a time where they had gone their separate ways, Firestar had stayed in ThunderClan while Graystripe had gone away to RiverClan. That had been completely his fault and decision, because he wanted to do what was best for his kits. This had been the loneliest time of his life, away from his friends, trying to be a father figure and learn new ways of life at the same time. Nightmares often haunted him in that time, of him being forced to the Dark Forest or of ThunderClan attacking him at the same time. But the worst ones were those of Firestar. Those were the ones that either showed him shunning him as well, or dying right before his eyes. After those, he either woke up with tears in his eyes or in a cold sweat.

When he had returned to ThunderClan, he had been so happy to be reunited with Firestar and all his old friends, and he thought that the bad dreams that haunted him would finally pass. But in the week in his return from the vet, he would never expect that the dreams would return to haunt him once again.

* * *

 _The forest was burning._

 _Graystripe was running through the forest, desperately trying to get away from the flames. Firestar was running alongside him, sides heaving due to how long and far they had run._

 _They eventually came to a clearing where the grass was parched and brown and the surrounding trees were ablaze with the ferocity that the inferno had cast upon this thicket. It was there that Firestar ran out of breath and slowed himself to a stop, wheezing hard._

" _Come on, Firestar!" Graystripe shouted, turning to his friend, "We have to stay ahead of it! We have to keep going!"_

" _Just...give me a second…" rasped Firestar, who was obviously struggling to get the fresh air that he needed._

 _Knowing that they did not have the time to stop, Graystripe pressed himself under Firestar's belly and lifted him onto his back. The ThunderClan leader let out a small grunt of protest, but he did nothing more._

 _Graystripe initially found it hard to find his footing, but after taking a couple of seconds, he managed to drag himself and his worn-out friend to the edge of the clearing. There had to be water ahead!_

 _But just as he was about to escape the burning clearance, a creaking noise stopped him in his tracks, and he looked up in newfound terror._

 _There was a very tall tree that was engulfed in the fierce flames, and it was beginning to collapse._

 _Graystripe made one last struggle to make it to the edge of the clearing, but it seemed that Firestar had noticed it too, and he was struggling to get off of his back._

" _No...Firestar…"_

 _But it was too late. Firestar tumbled off of his flank and fell on his side, his chest still heaving from the effort he needed to get the air he needed._

 _Graystripe tried to return to his friend's side, but a sudden cracking noise halted him once again, and the burning tree began to collapse._

 _And it was heading straight for Firestar._

" _No!" yowled Graystripe as he tried to run to his friend, but this time, Firestar got up and held his paw out. A clear signal to stop._

 _Acceptance and confidence of his fate was showing clearly in his eyes._

 _Then, a solitary tear fell from his eye as the burning tree crushed him to death._

" _Firestar!" screamed Graystripe. "No!"_

 _He knew he was too late._

 _He knew he had failed._

 _He knew that Firestar was dead._

" _No…No…Firestar…"_

 _He was completely alone._

 _Everything was gone._

 _His Clan._

 _His mate._

 _His kits._

 _His best friend._

 _Everything._

 _He was completely alone._

* * *

 _._

 _Wham!_

Graystripe's head smashed into a wooden barrier at top speed, causing him to rear back and fall on his flank. He let out a groan and rubbed his head with his paw as he blinked open his eyes.

He was in the now all-too-familiar hazy environment of his Twoleg house. Sleek floors, Twoleg toys laden across the ground, flickering light above him.

It wasn't a dream.

 _Why can't it be a dream?_

He stared despondently at his front right paw, which was in some sort of white bondage, as it had been for the past few days. Just the restraint made him feel weaker than he probably was. For the first time, he felt like he was locked away and could not get out.

For the first time, he felt completely trapped.

 _StarClan, I'll go mad if I stay here any longer!_

He retreated to his new nest of cotton and curled up into a tight ball, trying to sleep away this nightmarish environment he had despised since the day he learned about it as a kit.

This was a warrior's worst nightmare.

It had been a quarter moon since he had woken up here, alive and well. The torrential pain that had tormented his body had dwindled to aches that plagued his joints, but allowed him to move without much resistance. He had praised StarClan several times, but then noticed where he was; inside a Twoleg nest, with no real way of getting out. He had been locked away.

After refusing to move from his new nest on the first day, he tried to make the best of it. He walked around the nest, trying to get a grip on his new surroundings, but ended up spending the rest of the day staring longingly outside the window, to the rain-soaked grasslands.

That was the same day he found out about the Twoleg food that they gave him.

Crunchy, small and tasteless orbs of bland flavoring that barely did anything to fill his stomach. It was much worse than what Firestar had said that they fed kittypets. That first day, Graystripe had forced himself to choke down a couple of pellets before not being able to take the tasteless grub anymore and retreating to his cotton nest.

 _Was this how Firestar lived before joining ThunderClan?_ Graystripe couldn't help asking himself that question over and over again as he struggled through the first two days of his incarceration. During this time, he closed himself off from his Twoleg captors and kept a suitable distance from them.

However, on the third day, he could no longer take the isolation he was forcing upon himself, and began to interact with the Twolegs.

He didn't start big, he just walked to them and let them pet his flank, or scratch his head, and back away if they went further. But by the end of the day, Graystripe found himself opening up more and more, and letting the Twoleg kits scratch his belly, which admittedly felt pretty good, and carry him around the nest.

But he had also begun to learn a bit of Twoleg conversation, and as such, he discovered a new problem that he had to deal with.

He had figured out the words that meant food, water and come, which were repeated so often that it wasn't that hard to ascertain the meaning, but there was another word which confused him very much.

His name was Ember.

He had no idea why they called him that, but it was likely because that no Twoleg had ever known that his name was Graystripe, but he still disliked the name, since it wasn't his own, and he was worried he would convince himself that it _was_ his name.

But the Twolegs, a male, his mate and three kits, were kind enough. They generally left him alone, but were very gentle when they wanted to play with him. Occasionally, after Graystripe found out that he was not in danger with these Twolegs, he would sit on the male Twoleg's lap. The Twoleg would stop whatever he was doing, and pet his back gently. He didn't know why, but it brought him comfort to be in the caressing hold of the Twolegs that were imprisoning him.

It even got to the point where he didn't really mind _anything_ , being called a different name, being forced to eat rabbit pellets as food, not getting the chance to go outside, it just didn't seem like a bad thing, as long as the Twolegs kept comforting him.

But all it took was one glance out the window to remind him of who he really was and where he was meant to be.

It was wrong to be trapped in here.

He was lost.

* * *

On the ninth day, Graystripe woke up from a dreamless sleep, knowing exactly what he had to do. He had to get outside and find his way out of here. ThunderClan was far more important than this pampered life he was being tuckered into, and he knew it.

But the problem was getting outside. The Twolegs rarely went outside at all, and when they did while Graystripe was around, they told him to stay inside. There was even a time where he was sprayed with water for trying to get outside. He could tolerate it, of course, as he had spent a season living in RiverClan, but the weaker and more naϊve side of him didn't want the cuddles taken away (which was a very stupid reason, now that he thought of it), so he stayed put inside.

Graystripe found himself sitting by the door the entire morning, with no luck. However, by sunhigh the older female Twoleg had approached the door, and opened it! Now was his chance!

Graystripe tried to sneak out, but the Twoleg caught him and stamped her foot in his face. "Stay … Ember!" was all he could decipher from the foreign tongue she shouted at him.

That wasn't going to stop him. The moment her foot stopped moving, he leaped over her feet and into the outside world. He had done it! He was outside!

Expect…

The moment he was outside, his body was hit with a mess of sounds and scents at once. Immediately, he was struck with the scents of greenleaf, along with different kinds of flowers, the direction the wind was blowing, the trilling high-pitched noises of the cicadas in the bushes, the rustling of said bushes, the slight creaking of metal from the gust of wind, the abrupt whirring from the next garden over, the noise of a Thunderpath and monsters blitzing by at top speed…

Everything came down upon Graystripe in a loud indecipherable cacophony where he was unable to elucidate one thing from the other. His blood was rushing to his head and his breathing increased to the point where he was hyperventilating.

 _It's too much!_

Graystripe could no longer take this overwhelming loudness and retreated back into the Twoleg den. He hared directly to his nest and curled up in a tight ball of fear, just as he had with the vision of the Twolegs tearing him apart.

His heart was beating faster than he had ever thought possible, and his eyes were shut so tightly that they began to ache. He was freaking out, and in doing to, he silently screamed to StarClan.

 _You resurrected me for this?!_

Moments later, he was picked up from his nest and carried away by a Twoleg. Graystripe looked up and saw that it was the oldest of the kits, almost a full adult, who had picked him up. Slowly but gently, he caressed the frightened Graystripe by petting his back and scratching the back of his neck; his sweet spot.

Graystripe felt his body relax, but his mind was still in deep turmoil. Amidst the harsh discord the outside had thrust upon him, he was unable to pick up a single scent of the forest.

Meaning that he had no way to start thinking of the right direction.

Meaning that he had no way to get out of this prison.

Meaning that he had absolutely no idea which way was home.

Graystripe closed his eyes in despondency, now knowing that the inevitable that he so hoped wasn't the case was proven true.

He was lost.

* * *

 **My oh my, was that chapter something to write.  
**

 **So like I said, Chapter 4 will likely be updated at the end of September. Keep an eye on my profile for an OC submission deadline coming soon. Otherwise, before then, SEND THEM IN! All OC's sent in will get a majo part in Chapter 4 and the end of the book! I PROMISE!**

 **Also, feel free to always leave a review! It will really help if I can get your opinion of how I can improve my writing :D**

 **Signing off for now! May StarClan be with you always,**

 **~Xerenity**


	5. IV: Natives

**Me, a couple hours after posting Chapter 3: "I'm gonna get this done by early September because I'm really good at managing my schedule!"**

 **Me, after a bruised wrist, a shattered shoulder, eight weeks of physical therapy, inability to write for nine weeks, several arguments with my parents, sittings in on my parents' arguments and them divorcing because of me:**

Holy shit I did it.

 **Guys I am SOOOOOO SORRY FOR THIS DELAY! The amount of bull I've been through since September is just unfair. But it is done! IT'S DONE! This is well overdue, but thanks so much to DappledleafTheBootiful and the three users who wished to remain anonymous that sent in OC's! I had a blast writing them, and I really hope you enjoy, you guys deserved it so long ago, but here it is! Enjoy Chapter 4!**

* * *

 **Chapter 4**

 **~[** Natives **]~**

Graystripe did not sleep well that night.

The hauntings of the indecipherable cacophony he had experienced still rang in his mind, making him shift uncomfortably in his nest. Throughout the night, he was drifting in an out of a shallow sleep, with the sound from yesterday prodding his ears like a thorn and waking him up consistently.

By the time the sun rose, Graystripe was so tired that he could barely move. He wanted so desperately to sleep, but his body would not allow him to relax. So he forced himself to roll out of his nest and drag himself to his water bowl.

As he drenched his face in cold water, in a desperate attempt to wake himself up, he wondered whether he should even try to go outside and endure the torture once again. He could spend the day relaxing and catching up on sleep.

Be he was indignant with himself, and decided that getting home was far more important than anything else that involved staying here, even if that meant forbidding himself to sleep at all.

So after he was manageably awake, he let himself dry by staring out the window where the sun was closest, waited unusually patiently until the Twolegs woke up, and then sat by the door. He knew that there was one way for him to get outside, and if that didn't work, he would be stuck for the rest of the day.

When the sun was well above the horizon, Graystripe saw what he was looking for; the two youngest Twoleg kits. He knew that they held a lot of affection for him, and would be willing to do anything to make him happy.

 _Anything, huh? Let's put that to the test._

Graystripe, when he saw the Twoleg kits, turned and looked out the windowsill, all the while giving the most innocent and pleading look that he could muster.

The plan worked like a charm. The Twoleg kits immediately noticed him looking out the window, and, after giving him some back scratches, opened the door and let him out. Graystripe had to take a few seconds to realize the door was open because of how fast the plan worked.

Now, before taking steps outside for only the second time in a quarter moon, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and forced himself to relax

 _Okay, new day. Time to try again._

And so with one more deep breath, he stepped outside into the crisp, morning air.

Nothing had changed from the day before. The artificial environment still loomed about him somewhat threateningly. However, in the light of dawn, there was a different sentiment with this new environment. Without the harshness of noise the previous sunhigh had thrust upon him, this environment felt...oddly serene.

 _This isn't too bad,_ thought Graystripe as he cast his glance around the settled grass of his outside enclosure, the small dew drops sparkling in the light of the rising sun. As he probed the setting around him, he noticed a small beetle, skittering through the grass, and Graystripe suddenly felt flushed with newfound energy in that one moment, the instant where he knew that he was in control. He was the predator.

Sure, it was a small bug, and the last time he had eaten one was the harsh leaf-bare when he was eight moons old and there was no food to eat. The taste was far from appealing, and Graystripe did not long to sample the small probe of sour, foreign blood flow upon his tongue, but a little hunting practice couldn't hurt, right?

He let himself down into a hunting crouch and waited until the bug was stopped. Then, as if he was commanded to, he leaped on the critter with both paws landing squarely on it's back. A perfect pounce. Graystripe let a smile cross his lips as he moved his paws to look at his victim. Not even a quarter-moon of imprisonment could keep him from his warrior instincts working on full power in his body.

Or so he thought.

Just moments after Graystripe made his first kill in ten days, the door opened behind him, and he turned to see that the two Twoleg kits had followed him outside, and circled around him like a moth to a light. Graystripe was used to this, and swallowed the tinge of annoyance that came with this newfound problem. Sure, the kits loved him and also let him outside, but at this point in his plan, they were just a nuisance and one more obstacle to get through on his journey back home.

He was just about to justify himself about doing the pounce on the bug (which was likely the reason the kits had time to catch up to him) when he felt an object flash by the side of his head, distracting him enough for him to turn his head for just a moment.

And there it was. An unmistakable gray ball of fur that Graystripe had been hoping to see for almost two weeks.

 _A mouse! A real mouse!_

Graystripe could not believe his eyes. The Twoleg kits had brought him real food! Finally, he no longer had to eat those rock-like excuse for food daily! For once, the Twolegs were actually being considerate!

But the Twoleg kits would not give him his prize that easily, as the younger and shorter Twoleg held the mouse by a stick and flailed it around wildly, making Graystripe thrash aimlessly through the air in desperation to get that simplistic taste of the forest rushing through his senses once again, and the older Twoleg stamped on the grass and clapped her hairless paws together again and again, in an attempt to make Graystripe even more disoriented than he already was.

But giving in on an opportunity like this was something that Graystripe would not even consider as he threw punch after wild punch at this refreshing new prey.

At last, his claws dug into the mouse's flesh, and he yanked the piece of prey to the ground. The kits squealed with delight as Graystripe uncovered his kill to himself.

But something was up with this piece of prey. As the Twolegs bent down to look at him more closely, Graystripe gave an experimental bite into the back of the mouse's neck.

He was expecting to scent the familiar blood of mouse, but instead, to his surprise, he scented nothing and got a mouthful of cotton.

This was no mouse. This was a Twoleg toy! He had been completely duped!

Anger boiled over inside of his belly, and with one swipe, he tore through the synthetic skin, ripping the mouse in half. The Twoleg kits could only stare in shock as Graystripe destroyed their favorite toy right before their eyes.

Once his sudden frustration had been expressed, Graystripe leaped onto the boundary wall and began to lick the cotton off of his chest. Behind him, he could hear the younger Twoleg kit begin to cry, and Graystripe felt a small throb of guilt. He never liked upsetting anyone at all, but this time they had gone too far.

He was frustrated. Frustrated because of how much this pampered lifestyle had gotten to his head. Frustrated because of how close he was to letting them take control of his life. He was no longer going to let that happen, as he looked down from the wall and saw the Thunderpath walkway that led away from this prison in a direction somewhere close to home. No longer would he be controlled by Twolegs to eat bland pellets of dust and give up his body for them to scratch and pet. Now was the time for him to be free.

And so, with one last glance at the Twoleg kits, who were now trying to pick up the mess he had made, he leaped off the wall and into the treacherous world before him.

For the first couple of minutes, he wasn't really focused on where he was going, instead trying to work his scent glands to pick up something familiar about the home he was stolen from. But when he began to individualize all the scents around him, he realized he had no idea where he was going. So he stopped and closed his eyes, just focusing on his sense of smell.

That wasn't very helpful since he was standing next to a Thunderpath, so when asphalt was the only thing that he picked up, he started looking around for some sort of familiar landmark. Highstones would be the easiest thing to spot, since it was so high up. But once again, that wasn't much help either since the rows of Twoleg dens obscured his vision.

Then there was an abrupt rustle from the bushes to his right, and instantly, a dog careened out of the bushes and went directly for him.

It happened so fast that Graystripe barely had time to react. With a yowl of terror, Graystripe turned and tore off in the other direction, all the while looking both ways desperately to try and find a way to lose the dog. At last, he found a field of grass where he turned and ran to hide.

The dog had stopped following him, and Graystripe relaxed until he heard a loud whirring behind him. As he turned, the adrenaline came rushing back as he looked up in terror at a gleaming red monster being held by a large Twoleg. In seconds, he was running again with his tail trapped between his legs.

Graystripe was so scared, he didn't notice where he was going, and when he stopped, he didn't notice where he was until his gaze focused on the surface he was standing on.

He was standing on a Thunderpath, and there was a monster coming straight at him.

Instinct kicked in at the last moment, and arching his back, he coiled up as the monster shot by him. The artificial breeze blasted him in the face, and he forced him back onto the walkway, pelting away from everything at this point.

He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry, he wanted to throw up, he wanted to bury himself in the ground, he wanted to fall asleep and never wake up… Graystripe felt like a helpless kit trapped in his own mind as he let his instinct guide where he was going.

And though he didn't know it, instinct wanted to go back to the one place he knew how to get there.

After a good five minutes sprinting away from danger, Graystripe stopped to catch his breath, ears flat and eyes glimmering to the brim with shock and terror. He collapsed onto his belly as he desperately tried to calm himself down. And as he did, the door creaked open to reveal the same Twoleg kits who had tried to maim him with fake bait.

Before he could react, he was scooped up in the arms of the youngest Twoleg kit, and he managed to get one last despondent look at freedom before he was locked inside once more. He stared in shock one last time, allowing all hope to diffuse from his belly, before burying his face into the Twoleg's shoulder skin. That had been his greatest opportunity to escape, and he had watched it slip away.

 _I'm never going to get out of here!_

* * *

Days past. Followed by weeks.

Graystripe remained locked up in the Twoleg den, forbidden to be let outside after his escape attempt. And so, he was stuck wandering the premises of his prison and being forced to give up his body to the Twoleg's caresses, which at this poin meant nothing to him.

While he didn't notice this, he was changing slowly, psychologically and physically. He had been eating less of the cat food they gave him, he hadn't given himself a proper wash in days, and his eyes held an a dull, emotionless gaze.

He was turning into the mindless monster he had tried so hard to avoid.

A new season on leaf-fall was upon him. Leaves swirling around the den and the air becoming crisp and chilly. Graystripe barely took notice. What was the point in even thinking about the outside world if he was never going to cherish it again, feel the wind sweep through his fur and experience all of the joys of the wild?

His Twolegs had made sure to never give him that leisure again. In the fear of him running off again, they had kept the doors locked around him, locked the windows and either sprayed him with water or or whacked him with a broom when he even sat near a possible exit. At least now he could empathize with kittypets a little.

For the first time in seasons, he felt...drained.

It was a feeling he was at least a little bit familiar with. He had had a paws-on experience with it when he was grieving. As Mistyfoot had told him, he had barely eaten, slept or even left his den when he was staying in RiverClan, likely because he was still grieving for Silverstream by spending as much time as he could with his kits. His energy was at an all time low, and it seemed to be matched today.

It was sunhigh, and he noticed that four of the Twolegs were out today. That left him alone with the adult female, he realized with a prick of annoyance. It wasn't that he held anything against her, just that she was usually the one who would assault him whenever she thought he was crossing the line.

Well, maybe he did hold that against her.

Deciding to keep as much distance between himself and the Twoleg, he walked up the wooden ledges that led to the second floor, where he could at least have a little bit of freedom until the Twoleg followed him up here. He walked into his favorite part of the den, a soft surface that felt like feathers when he lay down that doubled as a Twoleg nest, when he let out an involuntary shiver and felt his fur fluff up. _Why is it so cold in here?_ he complained inwardly as he leaped less than gracefully onto the nest and preparing for a somewhat-peaceful rest that would likely be interrupted by the chattering birds that lived outside the window. He stretched his body and let out a loud yawn before a sight caught his attention and any drowsiness in his body.

"Hello…" he muttered quietly as he snatched a quick glance around him for the Twoleg before moving almost entrance at the sight.

The window was open.

The window was _open._

This was too good. It had to be a trap that the Twolegs had set up to catch him escaping. There had to be a catch. There was no way that the Twolegs would be this careless and leave an opportunity like this so wide open for him. But after looking back for the Twoleg once, then twice, he let out a laugh of joy and disbelief. The Twolegs had basically handed him the chance the escape this StarClan-forbidden place and get back home! Immediately, he reared back and leaped out of the window, landing on the nearest with much more grace this time.

Scents filled him and noises assaulted his ears, just like his first time outside, but this time he couldn't be happier to feel this way. Now he realized the outside world was to him, and how nothing could ever contain him from his home. Ever. And the thought made him smile for the first time in weeks.

Carefully, he made his way down from the tree and looked around. He could have gone the way he had the last time he tried to escape, but that likely wasn't the best idea as he recounted the dangers he had encountered all at once with a brief shudder. After a couple more moments, he decided to try going over the fences and see where that led him.

And so, with a triumphant glance at prison he had escaped one last time, he officially began his journey back home.

Graystripe, thanks to his newfound burst of energy, was able to clear the fence of the den with one fluid leap, landing on the grass on all four paws easily. He looked around him to find that he had landed in an outdoor boundary of another Twoleg den, almost exactly like the one he had been locked up in for about a month. After realizing this, he shrugged it off and continued on his original path, leaping over the second wooden fence.

Three dens passed, then five, followed shortly by ten and twenty. But by the thirtieth den, Graystripe forced himself to pause for a moment, the current sensations filling him, being exhaustion from jumping repeatedly at the height he had been, pain from the exertion he was putting on weakened body that had not gotten proper exercise in two and a half moons, and an overwhelming, confusing sense of dejá vù.

 _How many of these are there?_ he asked himself in exasperation. Glancing at a reasonably tall tree that was in the boundary, he paced over to it and climbed to the third branch, which was tall enough to see how far he would have to go. He, however, was not prepared to see the sight before him as his eyes widened and he barely kept his jaw in his mouth.

In front of him was a seemingly infinite line of repetitive Twoleg dens, extending so long so that their generic shapes dotted the blue horizon, with nothing that even remotely resembled the territories that he so longed to return to. Graystripe felt his head begin to swirl and buzz like a hornet's nest. _It's too much!_ he complained inwardly as he stumbled down the tree, striving for someplace quiet, someplace where he could think.

He never got a chance to figure where that was, though, as he heard a gruff and threatening growl from behind him.

"And just where do you think you're going?"

Graystripe turned to find himself face-to-face with a large black and white kittypet sporting a black, spiked collar, and sharp, green eyes filled with menace. Even though he was probably just a cranky kittypet, he couldn't stop his heart from skipping a beat when he caught sight of the all-too-familiar design of the collar that was worn by cats that still gave him chills to this day.

 _Ridiculous! He's not from BloodClan, he's just a kittypet!_ he thought in retaliation of his fears as he let out an "Excuse me?" while turning to face the kittypet.

"Oh, I'm sorry, are you too dumb to understand?" gibed the kittypet, before allowing a glint of realization to cross his gaze. "Oh yeahhh, you're the new kitty in town, right? Well, I guess you would naturally be dumb to the rules around here since you're new, but I would've thought you would have some practical sense in that tiny brain of yours and know better than to come here." The cocky smile was replaced quickly by another snarl as he continued. "You see, this is my territory," he said, gesturing to the small field around him, "and if anyone wants to come or go by here, it's with my say-so. And since I didn't know you existed until yesterday, I don't think I have given you my permission." He finished his attempt at scaring Graystripe by unsheathing his claws and letting out a growl.

Graystripe felt severely underwhelmed by the kittypet's blatant threats, and he allowed himself a moment of sympathy for the less fortunate and competent kittypets that happened to lay a paw here before thinking of a way out of this. Even now, he could see impatience from the time he was taking to think this through and thoughtfulness of likely the next "insult" he was going to hurl at him. He decided to avoid a fight right now and try to defeat him in a more psychological manner.

"Heh. I'm impressed," he began, making sure to make full eye contact with his opponent, "Impressed that you are so stupid, so seduced to actually defend this excuse of a lifestyle you've made for yourself. I mean, look at you. You're so lonely in this world that you don't bother even leaving your den, just deciding to mindlessly try to hurt kittypets' feelings, constantly going around to other cats and and making yourself look like some sort of _pharisee_!"

Rage filled the kittypet's eyes and he dug his claws into the ground, snarling. A clear sign that Graystripe had gotten in his head. "Why you little son of a…"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," said Graystripe, daring himself to grab a front paw of his opponent, "Look at this; just look at this excuse of claw that you have. Not even the length of a blade of grass. What shame are you trying to thrust upon our kind with something like this? Disgraceful, I say…" The kittypet was left quivering with fury and shame as Graystripe turned and began to walk towards the boundary fence, his tail lifted a little bit higher than when he started the day. "Th-that doesn't mean anything!" he sputtered out, struggling to grasp how a complete stranger could make him hurt this much.

"Oh, I'm afraid it does," Graystripe said, stealing a glance behind him at the dejected cat, "How could I have been so stupid to think that a fat, lazy and all-out depressing kittypet has a right to defend their so-called "territory." That's right. They don't." He finished with a proud glance at the offended kittypet and prepared to be on his way.

He would have made it over the fence if his head wasn't smashed against it by a really strong kittypet that had every reason to be pissed off with him.

"Fat and lazy, huh?" he growled into his ear, "I'll show you 'fat and lazy.'" He dug his stubby claws into his face, and then, with all of his strength he could muster focused on Graystripe's head, he reared back a smashed his head against the fence. Graystripe let out a yowl of pain as fresh pain throbbed in his head, as the kittypet prepared to try and pulverize his skull again.

This time, Graystripe was ready. When he tried to dig his claws into his head, Graystripe let himself fall onto his flank and kicked out his hind legs into the kittypet's chest. The kittypet hissed in pain and recoiled, letting Graystripe free. But before Graystripe could go offensive, his opponent recovered much quicker than he was prepared for and dug his teeth into the back of his neck. Graystripe, thinking quickly, drilled the back of his head into the kittypet's muzzle, causing him to lose his grip at the expense of more pain on his head.

The two then continued their assault rolling on the ground, exchanging blows to the chest, belly and stomach. Eventually, after about a minute, Graystripe seemed to gain the advantage, holding the kittypet down by his collar and sending blows on his muzzle and forgetting the crucial tactical error he had made.

Graystripe only realized this when the kittypet drove his hind legs and flipped him onto his flank. He got up quickly, but the kittypet was prepared and leaped rather elegantly over him,

"This fat and lazy kittypet is about to rip your head off!" he shouted right before propping his muzzle up and launching his teeth at his throat.

In that moment, everything seemed to freeze as Graystripe realized why the technique was so familiar to him, and he seemed to be thrown back in time to a vision that perfectly resembled the event. Yowls and screams of battle filled his ears as he was thrown back to battle of BloodClan, and he staring at two specific cats interlocked in ferocious battle. Graystripe went cold as he saw that the two cats were a huge black tom of which he never learned the name of and Whitestorm, the former ThunderClan deputy before him, and he realized what was about to happen.

Just as he remembered, the BloodClan warrior forced Whitestorm off of him, and then slipped to Whitestorm's blind side while he was recovering he was recovering, and not even a second later, drove his teeth into Whitestorm's exposed throat. His agonizing yowl rang in his head as the vision came to a sudden end. Graystripe, with almost no time to react, pushed himself off of the kittypet when his teeth clamped down inches away from his throat and then, with a look of newfound terror at the kittypet, turned and ran.

"Yeah, that's right! Run with your tail trapped between your legs, you little runt! Why? 'Cause this fat and lazy kittypet just kicked you ass! Hahah!" shouted the kittypet after him. Graystripe ignored him and kept running, not allowing himself to stop until his heart slowed and he could breathe. _I can't believe it!_ he thought, stopping to catch his breath beneath another tree, _I lost to a kittypet! What's going on with me?_ After sitting down for a moment, he began to try and figure his failure out. _It has to be the damn Twolegs, right? I mean, they were the ones who kept me captive for this long!_ It made sense in his head as the most practical reason, but there was another reason that was bothering him.

 _That was BloodClan technique that he used on me! He was trying to kill me!_ It seemed so broad and up-in-the-air that Graystripe tried to dismiss it, but he found it unusually hard to do that. Instead, another thought crossed his mind that made him even more uncomfortable.

 _What if I'm just losing the skills I have in being a warrior? What if I'm just getting soft?_ Graystripe wanted really hard to dismiss this one the most out of the three he had come up with, but it felt strangely and dishearteningly…reasonable. With a sigh of sadness, he licked his paw and drew it over his head, pondering what to do next.

"You know, I wouldn't feel too bad if I were you." Graystripe's ears perked as he heard a new voice come from the tree he was sitting and turned his head to the lowest branch. Sitting there was a cream-colored she-cat who was looking down at him with a friendly and sympathetic gleam in her bright green eyes. "Nobody's ever won a fight against Duke. He's probably the best fighter in this neighborhood."

So, Duke was his name. Seemed fitting for a kittypet that was physically able enough to give a fully strengthened warrior the beating that he had gotten. _Though "fully strengthened" is likely in question,_ he thought before pushing it away and directing his attention back to the new kittypet who had just leaped down from the tree.

"My name is Millie," introduced the kittypet, "Your name is Ember, right? You're that new cat down the block with the little boy and girl." "Uh, actually, 'Ember' is just what the Twolegs call me," said Graystripe, feeling unusually awkward about how surely this kittypet thought of him as who he wasn't, "My real name is Graystripe."

"Graystripe, huh?" said Millie, "That's a nice name. You know, I haven't seen you this far from your house before. Do you know how to get back?"

"Well, no." said Graystripe, now feeling embarrassed, "In fact, this is the first time that I've been let out of my den-er-house."

"Oh," said Millie, "Well, would you like me to show you around? I have a couple of friends that would love to meet you. Of course, if your housefolk want you back soon, that's fine, too." Graystripe was about to refuse before he stopped to think about it for a minute. If he said yes, then he could get an official lay of the land that he was trying to escape, and it would be an excuse to stay out of his den for a while. "You know, that sounds great," he said, smiling.

"Great!" said Millie, clearly pleased by this new companionship, "Then let's go!"

* * *

"She should be allowed out by now…"

Graystripe had traveled with Millie across Twolegplace for a while. Millie had showed her where some of her friends lived and liked to hang out, but they had yet to meet another cat or find anything that would help him in his escape. Not that he was complaining. In fact, He found it rather comforting to be around Millie, likely because she wasn't making him uncomfortable in any way, just serving a perfect balance between quiet enough to leave him alone with his thoughts and engaging enough to keep him interested in what she was saying.

 _So far, Millie is the nicest kittypet I've met,_ he thought. Not that there was much competition. The only other kittypet he had met was Duke, and it was pretty to surpass a cat that tried to kill him.

"Ah! There she is," said Millie, turning Graystripe's attention to the den that she was watching. From the den they were watching had emerged a mottled brown she-cat, who Graystripe guessed to be about the same age as Millie. She leaped onto the fence and looked around for a moment before spotting the two companions and waving at them with her white-tipped tail.

The two leaped down from the tree, but Millie stopped right outside the fence and looked at Graystripe with a look of – _is that embarrassment?_ "You know, you don't have to come in if you don't want to," she said quietly.

"Why wouldn't I?" said Graystripe, now suspicious.

"Well," said Millie, shifting her paws, "You see, Basil is a bit of a romantic to toms who are unfamiliar to her, so she has been known to make uncomfortable situations for toms. I have been trying to talk her out of these, but she has been on a search for a mate for a long time, so…"

Graystripe nearly laughed. _Are all of the kittypets here crazy?_ "You know what, if I'm stupid enough to almost get myself killed in a fight with Duke, then this can't be so bad." Millie smiled warmly at him and the two leaped over the fence to greet Basil.

"Millie!" said Basil, her green eyes shining at the sight of her friend, "It's so good to see you! How are you doing?" "Great!" said Millie, before they began chatting about their lives as kittypets. As they talked, Graystripe felt a pang of sadness and remembered the times where he and Firestar would just talk about their own lives, not having to worry about Clan disagreements or Twolegs or impending doom. He missed those times a lot more than he thought

"Well now, who's this handsome fellow?" said Basil, causing Graystripe to release himself from his own thoughts. He caught Millie's gaze, which was clearly wishing him luck, before she turned and said "This is Graystripe. He's staying with the family of five down my street."

"Graystripe…" she said, looking over him and not shying away from drawing her tail over his flank. "A nice, strong one you are. That's certainly rare here in this neighborhood. So where do you come from, Graystripe?"

"Uh…well…" stuttered Graystripe, still feeling immensely uncomfortable from this kittypet's shameless will to get close to him. Desperately, he sent Millie a glance pleading for help, and she picked it up pretty quickly.

"Uh…Basil?" said Millie, snatching her attention, "I wouldn't go there. It's kind of a sensitive topic for him."

"Oh. Why is that?" she asked, all traces of suggestive gleams in her gaze gone in an instant and replaced by curiosity. Graystripe tried to figure out the answer to that amid the confusion of how Millie could possibly know about his past in the forest, but once again, Millie stepped in to save his hide. "Well, you know the van fire that happened near the street that Xander lives on last month?" Basil nodded. "Yeah, Graystripe was the cat in that fire."

"Oh," said Basil, "Oh my God, I'm so sorry! That must have been terrible! Are you okay now?"

"Yeah, I'm fine now, but it's not really my favorite thing to talk about…" said Graystripe, playing along with what Millie said.

"Well, why don't you come in? I think my housefolk gave me enough food for guests."

"What about Firework?" asked Millie.

"Ah, she's got her own bowl that she eats out of now. Plus, they give her so much that the last time she tried to eat it all, she nearly threw up all over her nest and didn't eat anything the following day."

"Wait, who's Firework?" said Graystripe who was trying to absorb so much information at once his head was spinning. "Oh, she's my sister," said Basil, "…sort of. You see, my folks brought her in from some adoption shelter a while ago, and she is just the cutest thing. So I took her under my wing."

 _Wait, wait, wait…Sister? Adoptive shelter? What kind of crazy world do these cats live in!?_

They walked in through a small door flap into a den that seemed bigger than what Graystripe lived in, though everything in it looked about the same. As they kept walking, Graystripe noticed that he didn't see much of any Twolegs in the den, a difference in freedom that he so longed for in his own den. After a couple minutes of navigating, they arrived at a small nook where two bowls sat, filled with the all-too-familiar pellets that Graystripe currently called his daily meal.

"Well, here we are," said Basil, gesturing to the bowls with her tail, "I'll let you two have first serving, while I go get- "

She never got to finish, because the splash and clatter of a water bowl falling on top of her head cut her off. Graystripe let out a yelp of surprise while Millie dissolved into knowing laughter. With the bowl blocking her eyes, he couldn't perfectly read her gaze, but the sigh she let out and the small smile she revealed was enough to figure it out.

"FIREWORK!" she shouted, now not bothering to hide the embarrassed grin. There was a clatter from above, and from the shelter of two potted plants emerged a ginger kit, maybe barely six moons old, with very bright blue eyes. Graystripe glanced in bewilderment as the kit bounced to Basil, a huge grin plastered to her face.

"So, this is Firework?" said Graystripe quietly to Millie. She nodded, and added in a whisper, "Also, just a heads up. Firework is wickedly smart, but she…can't talk. She's mute."

"Oh," said Graystripe. _No wonder she can be so good at pranks! She can't really give away anything about it!_

"…and this is Graystripe," said Basil to Firework after a lighthearted scolding, "He's the brave cat that survived the fire last month." Immediately, Firework turned on him with a bright look of sudden fascination, and Graystripe knew he was trapped in telling the story that he wasn't comfortable telling. _Thanks a lot, Basil!_

He took a moment to think of a way to talk about this. He didn't necessarily want to give a version that talked negatively of the Twolegs, on the account that these kittypets thought rather highly of Twolegs, and didn't want to go into too much detail on the aftermath so that Firework wouldn't be given nightmares for the next season.

In the end, he told a version of the story that he could easily lie through. He told the she-cats that he had been a kittypet that spent a lot of time in the forest, and that his Twolegs passed away, leading to him being picked up to be taken to a shelter. Then, there was a fire that broke out in the van, and he had barely escaped as the van exploded. The reactions were reasonably what he expected; Firework's blue eyes seemed to shine with admiration and Basil looked at him with an uncomfortable amount of sympathy, but Millie's expression was unreadable, and that's what set him on edge. _There's no why she knows I'm lying…is there?_

 _Oh, shut up, Graystripe! You're just being paranoid!_

"My God," said Basil in disbelief, shaking her head, "You had to go through all that all by yourself? I can't imagine…" She looked back up at him, the amount of sympathy in her eyes making Graystripe feel a prick of guilt in his belly, "At least you're safe here. All of the Twolegs here treat us well, and I've heard good things from the cats who used to live there. And if you want to stay with us at any time, this place is always open."

Graystripe felt touched by her kindness, but knew that he would never stay here for a moment if he had the choice. But he couldn't help but smile as he watched Firework whiz around in quick, tight circles, using up all of the energy she could muster trying to catch her tail. He chuckled as she tripped and rolled on the ground for a moment, before bouncing back up and tried to leap on Basil's back, all while keeping a goofy smile plastered on her face.

 _At least the cats here are nice…_ thought Graystripe as Millie walked up behind him, lightly placing her tail on his flank. "You okay?" she asked.

"What?"

"I mean, it must have been hard going back to those memories, right? That must have been terrible, what happened to you."

"Oh." Graystripe thought about what he said, and what had actually meant. While the differences were pretty major, the underlying tone had been the same in both. Both were filled with grief and certain longing to get back home. Now, while the kittypets here were very kind to him, and gave their full sympathy, he wanted to return to ThunderClan more than ever.

"Yeah," he said after a moment, "It was."

"So _this_ is where the party's at!"

Graystripe turned in surprise to see that the window had been opened and two toms had emerged into the den. One was a decently-sized mottled black-and-white tom with one cream-colored ear and the other was a large, yet quite young, bracken-colored tom. Graystripe watched them warily as they leaped down from the windowsill and walked over to greet the three she-cats.

The two greeted Basil by touching their noses briefly but friendly, and the bracken-colored tom went to go play with an energetic Firework while the other went to greet Millie. "It's great to see you," he said, rubbing his muzzle along her jaw in affection, causing Millie to let out a purr. Graystripe watched the two in newfound interest. _Are these two...mates?_

"Hey! Who's the new kid?" the spotted tom said at an unnecessarily loud volume to Graystripe. Graystripe felt his ears flicker instinctively in annoyance and he gave his chest an uncomfortable lick as Millie walked up to introduce him.

"This is Graystripe. He just moved here." said Millie modestly.

"Graystripe?" said the tom, giving him another look before intelligence flowed into his eyes, "Oh yeah! You're that miracle tom that walked out of the van fire! Every cat knows about you! You're famous!" His youthful eyes sparkled with interest. "So how did you do it? Oh, I can't believe I get to talk to you! But you know what? I haven't even introduced myself! My name's Xavier! That big fella over there? That's Morris. He's my best friend! Wanna know how we met? It's kind of a funny story, actually…"

While the tom, Xavier was his name he said, started to ramble about an oddball and slightly questionable story about how the two toms met, Graystripe gave a pleading look of mercy to Millie, who smiled and shrugged. _Oh StarClan save me,_ thought Graystripe in desperation as he turned back to Xavier and pretended to listen.

"...and after that, we just became friends! I don't know what happened to the dog, though. Rumors say that his housefolk took him to the vet one day and he never came back. Can't say I blame them. He got tangled up in that fence pretty bad. Makes me feel almost bad for the thing. Anyway, after the story got out, Morris and I were the talk of the town! For a while. Not long, though. I did enjoy it, anyway! Especially the fact that Millie was so jealous of me! I guess she wasn't used to her good ol' brother getting all the attention for a while!"

"Wait, wait wait…" said Graystripe, stopping him with a flick of his tail, "You two are siblings."

"Yeah!" said Xavier while Millie nodded, "Why? What did you think we were? Mates?"

"Well, yes."

"Oh," said Xavier, "Well, I probably should have thought of that. Anyways, it's your turn!"

"What?"

"Oh, come on! Everybody's talking about you! You gotta tell us about your story! Your rise to fame! Everybody wants to know!"

"Well, uh...ah!" Graystripe was about to say something that would hopefully get him out of the situation when he was cut off by a frigidly cold object slamming into his flank. He turned around to see a soaking wet Firework clinging onto his back, her eyes gleaming with ecstatic amusement. Usually, Graystripe hand whoever surprised him an annoyed retort, but staring into Firework's dazzling blue eyes, exploding with emotion, he couldn't help himself. Not even a second later, he started to laugh at the prank he had fallen victim to. Xavier had seemed to forget that they were having a conversation altogether and pranced over to the ginger kit, grinning. "Firework, you naughty girl!" said Xavier, smiling, "Now you've made him wet! Who's idea was that?"

Firework turned and pointed to Morris, who shrugged his shoulders. "Try saying no to her. It's impossible."

Graystripe rolled Firework off of his back, and watched with amusement as she and Morris likely prepared a prank on Basil, who was intensely focused on grooming herself. Graystripe took a moment to look around at the other cats in the room as the duo prepared a devious trick on the poor she-cat. There was Xavier, the young, zealous tom filled with unending curiousity, Basil, the caring and (almost overly) affectionate she-cat with a huge heart, Firework, the lively kit who seemed to explode with energy (like, say, a firework), and Morris, her loyal companion and partner-in-crime. _What a strange group of friends Millie has!_ thought Graystripe as Morris lifted Firework up to a potted plant set right above Basil's head, _But I can see why she likes them. They have such diverse personalities that it makes the time they spend together really enjoyable._

Is this what all kittypets were like? Graystripe's thought began to drift as Firework leaned against the pot and knocked it to his side, causing dirt to fall on Basil's head, _I don't see why I thought kittypets were so bad. I mean, albeit Duke, most of these cats seem enjoyable to hang around. Sure, they're not educated in the ways of the Clans, but when that's not my focus, they're just fun! Have I been too quick to judge?_

He absentmindedly glanced at Millie, who was laughing at Basil's sudden misfortune. _She's the nicest cat I've met since coming here. Granted, it's harder to be worse than Duke than better, but she's made me...comfortable here._ Graystripe thought about how much torment isolation had put him in for the past couple weeks and how much better life was here with the company of her and her wacky and carefree friends.

 _Maybe this place isn't so bad after all. Maybe finding the natives was all I needed._

* * *

"Well, here we are." said Millie as they arrived at the fence that served as the border to his den. The moon was high in the sky as the two returned from their outing. "It was really nice to meet you, Em-er-Graystripe."

"It was nice to meet you too, Millie," said Graystripe, not yet ready to confront the idea of being alone again, "I hope we can get to see each other again."

"I do too." said Millie, turning to meet Graystripe's gaze with sparkling eyes. "You know," she said, stopping Graystripe from leaping over the fence, "if you don't mind me being honest, you're the nicest tom I've ever met. I've never met a tom that doesn't either think to spare any time to pay attention to me or try to talk to me at all. I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate that a lot and you have friends here. I know that you've been through a lot and if you ever want to talk about it, feel free to talk to me." she ended with an embarrassed chuckle and a scuffle of her paws.

"Thank you, Millie." said Graystripe, his voice thick with emotion, "That's all I really wanted ever since I came here, and I'm glad I do have someone to talk to. Because let me tell you, there comes a point where the head scratching and dry pellet food just gets too much. I'm glad that I at least have someone to talk too."

The two cats stared at each other for a couple of moments before they broke away with more nervous chuckles. "Well, I'll see you around, Graystripe." said Millie, turning back to him with a smile. Graystripe waved his tail in farewell before leaping back over the fence to his den. Thankfully, the window that he had escaped out of was still open, and Graystripe snuck back in silently and walked to his nest, settling down.

For the first time in a very long time, he actually felt happy. Now that he knew that there were cats that he could talk to, he didn't feel alone anymore. _I may be really different from them_ , he thought as he closed his eyes, _but I do think that they are great friends._ As he dwelled on this thought, his thoughts drifted back to ThunderClan and a fresh wave of homesickness swept over him.

 _These cats are really nice, and I really do enjoy their company, but my true home is ThunderClan and I'll never stop trying to return. Don't worry, Firestar. I will make it home._

* * *

 **I'm done.**

 **I'M FINALLY DONE!**

 **You have no idea how much of a relief it is to finally release this chapter! Thanks to DappledleafTheBootiful and the three anonymous senders who sent in OC's. I truly had fun writing them!**

 **Sadly, I do not know what's next, but I will try desperately to submit Chapter 5 over Thanksgiving week, which, luckily, I have the entire week off to write -**

 **Thank you so much for your patience! As always, may StarClan be with you!**

 **~Xerenity**


End file.
